Santorum's hopes of winning may be squashed in the middle It is easy to be a gay-bashing, Christian fundamentalist in Iowa. It is not so easy in New Hampshire, as Rick Santorum, latest hope of the Republican right, is quickly learning. Only a few days after his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night, Santorum, who proudly describes himself as "a Jesus candidate," is coming up against the hard reality that the narrow social agenda that helped him in Iowa will not necessarily work elsewhere in America. At a raucous meeting with 600 students on Thursday, he was booed by college students in Concord, New Hampshire, over his unremitting opposition to same-sex marriages. A few hours later, he headed for the relative safety of a townhall meeting in Windham, New Hampshire, organised by the 9/12 Project, an organisation set up by right-wing media commentator Glenn Beck. The safety proved illusory. A 17-year-old high school student, Rebecca Connolly, asked him sweetly whether it was right to seek to impose Judeo-Christian values on a country as diverse as the US. Like the students in Concord, Connolly favours same-sex marriages. "Everyone should have the right to marry based on love," she said. This is a clash of two Americas, the social conservativism of the mid-west colliding with east coast moderates. Santorum's hopes of winning the party presidential nomination, never mind the White House, are in danger of being squashed in the middle. Santorum, grandson of a Welsh coal-miner and son of an Italian immigrant who fled to the US to escape Mussolini, is one of six candidates battling for the nomination to take on Barack Obama in the general election in November. Front-runner Mitt Romney won the first of the contests, Iowa, on Tuesday but Santorum, coming from near the back of the pack, was only eight votes behind, a stunning result for a candidate fighting on a shoestring budget. Next up is the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, followed by South Carolina on January 21 and Florida on January 31, with other states stretching beyond. Santorum is the candidate of the moment. He is the one attracting the big crowds in New Hampshire, curious to see the man who pushed Romney to a near dead-heat in Iowa. He is the one the media is following from campaign stop to campaign stop. To his credit, he has not trimmed his campaign message to suit New Hampshire, sticking so far to the same stump speech he delivered in Iowa on traditional family values, warning that poverty lies ahead for those who have children outside of marriage. His campaign banners remain unchanged: 'Faith, Family and Freedom.' He is aware of the risk. "People say to me 'don't talk about this in New Hampshire'," he said, adding that you either believed in something or you did not and if you believed in it, you should speak out." And he does speak out. He is the most belligerent of all the candidates on foreign policy, advocating bombing Iran. "Awesome," said one of the crowd listening to him at the townhall meeting in Windham. But elsewhere in America, there is a strong anti-war mood, one that his rival Ron Paul - his banners reading 'Ron Paul Peace' - is capitalising on. The Republican right, at least the part that detests Romney for being too moderate, has invested its hopes in Santorum building on his momentum with a second place finish behind Romney in New Hampshire and going on to win South Carolina, establishing himself as the Anti-Romney Candidate. But the problems facing Santorum are immense, beginning with New Hampshire. "I think, overall, he is in for a difficult time," said Andy Smith, New Hampshire's top pollster. That Santorum almost won Iowa is down to the support of born-again Christians and evangelicals, who made up 60% of the voters. In the 2008 primary, only 23% of those voting in New Hampshire described themselves as born-again Christians or evangelical. "It is one of the least religious states in the country," Smith said, adding that 43% of Republicans likely to vote on the primary favour gay marriage and the percentage who are pro-choice on abortion is higher than the country as a whole. Romney has a poll lead of about 20% in New Hampshire and the battle among the other candidates is to emerge in second place heading into South Carolina. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Centre, which does polling for CNN, the Boston Globe and other media organisations, said he had found little traction so far for Santorum in New Hampshire. There is a path for Santorum to the party nomination but Romney has a stronger path. He has won Iowa. He will win handily here by 20%. If he does that, he will likely win South Carolina. If Romney wins South Carolina, he is the nominee. The latest tracking poll in the state by Suffolk University found another slight bump for Santorum, who moved from 8% to 11% but that still leaves him a distant third behind Ron Paul in second. If it were still inconclusive at the end of January, Romney is still best-placed to win, favourite in the states up in February and with the money and organisation to fight all ten states up in contention on Super Tuesday, March 6. Santorum, with more limited resources, would have to pick and choose. He is not even on the ballot for one of the biggest, Virginia, evidence of his campaign's lack of planning. While he was at the back of the pack, neither the media nor his Republican rivals paid much attention to him. But after Iowa he faces intense scrutiny. In a preview of what is to come, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, endorsing Romney, described Santorum, who advocates cutting the federal budget, as a staunch defender while in the US Senate of pork barrel spending. McCain, who sees this as a form of corruption, added: "I just don't think he can portray himself as a fiscal conservative." The New York Times, like the rest of the US media, is also taking a closer look, detailing how, as senator for Pennsylvania, he worked hard to win millions of dollars in extra federal spending for hospitals in Puerto Rico. After leaving the Senate after defeat at the hands of the Democrats in 2006, he joined the board of Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services, the direct beneficiary of the extra cash to Pennyslvania. Santorum collected $395,000 in director's fees and stock options up until last year. His campaign team said it would be wrong to link his work in the Senate with his subsequent employment with Universal Health Services. The Centre for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organisation that tracks spending in politics, listed Santorum as the biggest recipient, among all the candidates standing in 2006, of contributions from lobbyists. It is not just the money. Santorum faces questions too over electability and how he managed to lose that seat by a stunning 18%. His Republican rivals are already asking how, if he can lose so badly in Pennsylvania, what chance does he stand of beating Obama for the White House. The fractured nature of the right might allow Romney to squeeze through in South Carolina, where he finished fourth in 2008 with only 15%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas governor Rick Perry and Texas Congressman Ron Paul are not going to stand back to allow Santorum to take the anti-Romney mantle. A Rasmussen poll Friday on South Carolina had Romney on 27%, with Santorum a close second on 24%, Gingrich on 18%, Paul on 11%, Rick Perry 5% and Jon Huntsman on 2%. But Public Policy Polling which will release the results of its South Carolina poll this weekend, says its responses so far have Gingrich pulling away from Santorum for second place. South Carolina is socially conservative but in a different way from Iowa. Santorum is a Catholic and while that did not matter to Christian evangelicals in the mid-west, it might matter, even five decades after Kennedy, to the Baptists of South Carolina. But first there is New Hampshire. Frederick Ford, 71, a retired small businessman and military veteran, the kind of Republican Santorum needs to win over, went to see him in Windham. He regularly applauded points Santorum made throughout his 90 minutes. But, as he picked up his coat at the end, he remained unpersuaded. The priority is to get Obama out. I wanted to know if he could beat Obama. I don't think he can," Ford said, adding he will probably vote for Romney.