MITT ROMNEY, seen as an unassailable nominee in the Republican race seems to have taken a back seat as evangelical catholic Rick Santorum gathers root because of the surge he witnessed in recent weeks.According to The Telegraph, latest PPP poll has shown 48% voters saying Santorum’s beliefs are similar to theirs, compared to 32% for Romney. The success of Santorum has even puzzled the pundits who had predicted smooth success for Romney, particularly in states such as Iowa and Ohio.

After a triple win in Colarado, Minnesota and Missouri, the 53-year-old former Pennsylvania senator made a comeback after pundits had written him off few weeks before. Armed with a degree in law, business administration and political science, Santorum is believed to be blessed with a positive mindset and that could be seen as a reason of his comeback.

While Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, according to the BBC has a multi-million-dollar campaigning machine, Santorum’s campaign is being run on a comparative shoestring. What is is that has led him to move ahead? Nobody has concrete answers but according to the BBC, as he represents the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party, and this group shows its dissatisfaction with the moderate Romney by shuffling allegiances among so-called ‘No Romney’ candidates continuously for months.

In 2005, Time magazine named him one of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals. He is noted for his sharp criticism to gay marriages, favours porn crackdown and defends sodomy laws. On foreign policy issues, Santorum according to reason.com, wants to change the name of ‘war on terror’ to ‘war against radical Islam’ and strongly favoured Iraq war, initiated by fellow Republican George Bush.

An extreme Catholic, he rests his politics on faith and believes religion is an essence of civilisation and culture. Though there are contradictions in his rhetoric and his work in office but Santorum calls for reduction in taxes. A longtime supporter of Social Security reform, according to reason.com, Santorum has endorsed the idea of personal retirement accounts, saying the only other alternatives are to "raise taxes or cut benefits or push back the retirement age."

Coupled with this, he has also complained about the level of government expenditures in general, arguing that “we are in a severe crisis, and it is a crisis of spending.” These statements seem to have struck the psyche of American electorate, who have been hit hard by the economic recession and could be one of the reasons for favouring Santorum.