Fundraising, debate woes plague Rick Santorum's presidential bid
Rick Santorum can't seem to catch a break.
The former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential candidate is likely to be denied a spot on the Fox News primetime debate stage on Thursday, thanks to poor poll numbers. And now come reports that three top staffers have left Santorum's campaign to form a super PAC supporting his candidacy.
Campaign manager Terry Allen, Iowa state coordinator Jon Jones, and digital strategist Steve Hilliard decamped several weeks ago in a staffing shuffle that was first reported Tuesday by Politico and confirmed to CBS News by campaign spokesman Matt Beynon.
According to Politico, the staffing shuffle was caused by financial woes at the campaign itself - super PACs are not bound by the maximum donation limits that govern presidential campaigns. But Beynon insisted that was "not at all" the case.
"You have all these other groups out there supporting candidates through the non-traditional campaign structure, and I think they saw an opportunity to do that for Sen. Santorum," Beynon said of the departed staffers. "They don't want Sen. Santorum fighting a campaign with one hand behind his back."
Still, there's no denying Santorum's fundraising has not stacked up to that of his GOP rivals. Between April and June, his campaign took in roughly $600,000 and spent over 60 percent of it. A super PAC supporting his candidacy (separate from the outfit his departed staffers are forming) raised roughly $300,000.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, by contrast, led the GOP pack with $120 million raised between his campaign and the outside groups supporting his candidacy. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was second in the Republican money race with $52.5 million in combined fundraising.
Even other long-shot candidates have raised more than Santorum. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's campaign, for example, raked in $1.7 million, and an outside group supporting her bid raised $3.5 million.
Beynon said Santorum's fundraising "has picked up" in recent weeks, and he attributed the current cash gap to the fact that Santorum has been out of office for some time.
"A lot of these folks are sitting senators or sitting governors. They made their decision to get in this race earlier than Sen. Santorum did," Beynon explained. "After he left the race last time, he had to go get a job and provide for his family."
Still, it's hard to imagine this is how Santorum, who actually won the Iowa caucuses in 2012 and placed second in that year's primary, envisioned his 2016 campaign beginning.
When the top 10 GOP contenders, according to public polling, square off in a primetime debate on Fox News on Thursday, Santorum will likely be left off the stage. Instead, he'll participate in a 5 p.m. debate held for those who don't make the cut for the primetime event.
Beynon said it's "disappointing" Fox has opted to use national polling to winnow the field, but he suggested the smaller forum could be an opportunity for lesser-known candidates to introduce themselves in the absence of the Donald Trump circus that's dominating the conversation among top-tier contenders.
"It's a very impressive group of folks," he said of the other candidates who are likely to be excluded from the primetime debate. "We feel really good about where he is."
Asked what kind of "turnaround plan" the campaign is devising to right the ship, Beynon disputed the premise of the question.
"I would not label it turning it around, I would label it taking advantage of opportunities," he said. "Sen. Santorum is not changing anything. He knows how to win Iowa. He did it four years ago."