As the Iowa caucuses approach, even undercards like Rick Santorum are pulling out all the stops. The former Pennsylvania senator has never had much money to his campaign — but the Red White and Blue Fund, a pro-Santorum Super PAC, just anted up $200,000 to release this ad, which will run in Iowa next week.

The Santorum phenomenon is a perplexing one. For, as the ad suggests, Santorum has betrayed conservatism on far fewer occasions than either of the two current frontrunners. Yes, he’s on record as a past supporter of No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D — but both were Republican-led policies, albeit ill-advised ones. Yes, he endorsed Arlen Specter — but on the basis of Specter’s ability to ensure Senate confirmation of pro-life judicial nominees. Quin Hillyer puts it best at The Spectacle Blog in a piece contrasting Santorum’s sketchy endorsement of Specter with Newt Gingrich’s sketchy endorsement of Dede Scozzafava:

For Santorum, in other words, the “bad” endorsement was the proverbial exception that proves the rule (the rule being that he is a reliable and effective conservative), whereas for Gingrich the “bad” endorsement was part of a long-running pattern of objectionable behavior, making the objectionable behavior the rule for Gingrich, not the exception.

Furthermore, for all that Santorum did have a “conservative” reason to endorse Specter, he has since expressed regret for offering his support to the soon-to-cut-and-run Republican.

No matter: Santorum’s conservative credibility has never scored enough points with voters — even voters clamoring for a “full spectrum conservative” — to earn an impressive standing in the polls. Why? The objections are predictable: He appears angry, he’s too focused on social issues and — most importantly — he lost his Senate seat by a whopping 20 points to a fellow who won ostensibly for no other reason than that he had the same last name as his dad.

Yet, Santorum remains optimistic about his chances — and, I have to admit, a surprisingly stellar finish in Iowa from Santorum would sit far better with me than, say, a win from Ron Paul and probably Newt Gingrich, too.