He may be competing for last place in South Carolina, but a number of right-wingers still want to ride the Rick Santorum horse.

Heading into Saturday’s Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, conservatives remains divided on who ought to be the alternative to presumed frontrunner Mitt Romney.

Although former House speaker Newt Gingrich appears to be surging ahead of Romney in the Palmetto State, a number of prominent activists on the right continue to push former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum as the true conservative alternative to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

Conservatives have long been wary of Romney, who has become known for big flip-flops on abortion and other issues. Many have been seeking to deny Romney the 2012 nomination, but have failed to fall behind a single alternative candidate.

Talking Points Memo released a poll average which finds Gingrich at 35.7 percent, Romney at 26.4 percent, Santorum pulling just 13.9 percent, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul pulling up the rear at 12.8 percent.

The strength of Gingrich is also demonstrated by the fact that when he suspended his own White House campaign this week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry threw his support to Gingrich.

But despite Santorum polling at second-to-last, a number of big-name conservatives appear to be going to mat for him.

“Last week some 150 conservative leaders gathered at Nancy and Paul Pressler’s ranch to discuss the Republican presidential campaign — there was an overwhelming 75 percent consensus to support Rick Santorum for President,” says Richard Viguerie, a pioneer of political direct mail and “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement,” according to The Nation magazine. “The group of conservative leaders named in today’s release includes Dr. James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Joseph Farah, Foster Friess, Elaine Donnelly and many others representing all four segments of the new conservative coalition who are coalescing behind Rick Santorum’s candidacy.”

Specifically, Viguerie calls Santorum the best candidate to bring together social conservatives, national defense conservatives, economic conservatives and tea party conservatives.

“Rick Santorum is the only reliable conservative left in the race,” Viguerie says. “He has a long involvement in the conservative movement, and he has demonstrated his commitment to hiring conservatives on his Senate staff and in his campaign. On the issues of vital importance to conservatives, such as the right to life, the pro-family agenda, national security, and fighting the growth of government, he has walked with us even when the path was hard.

“If conservatives want a conservative, not just another establishment Republican, nominated in Tampa and elected in November it is time for us to start concentrating on consolidating that winning four-part coalition behind one candidate,” Viguerie adds. “The candidate who best appeals to all four segments of the winning 2010 coalition, with the fewest negatives in November, is Rick Santorum.”

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

If Facebook users decided the election, President Obama would be easily winning a second term in the White House. Meanwhile, heading into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, traffic on the social media website appears to indicate the GOP nomination coming down to a three-man race among Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

This is according to an analysis and research of Facebook usage from Dec. 10 through Jan. 8 by Socialbakers, a social-media analytics company.

Among candidates, the president has more than 24 million Facebook “fans,” far more than that of his nearest rival, Mitt Romney, who has about 1.3 million. Texas Rep. Ron Paul has 672,483 fans; former House speaker Newt Gingrich has 223,558; Texas Gov. Rick Perry has nearly 180,000; former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has fewer than 41,000; and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has only 30,622.

But Santorum, whose campaign surged to a near-tie in Iowa caucuses, increased his fan base by 107 percent, followed by Paul at 14 percent and Romney at 7 percent. Santorum leads the top three candidates in number of posts shared – six times more than Paul and five times more than Romney.

For Santorum and Paul, posts that include a link have the most number of interactions (“likes” and comments), followed by posts with photos. For Romney, status updates have the most number of interactions, followed by posts with photos.

The top three candidates have shared an average of 19 videos on Facebook, with Santorum leading with 36 video posts.

Santorum averaged an 11 percent monthly increase in fans, followed by Paul at 8 percent and Romney at 3 percent. Santorum more than tripled his “People Talking About” metric between November and December, while Paul nearly doubled his “People Talking About” during the same period.

Most Engaging Posts

Socialbakers looked at which single Facebook post was most engaging for the candidates.

For President Obama, that came December 15, in the form of a new family portrait. This picture of the first family generated nearly 87,000 “Likes” and almost 16,000 comments.

Romney’s most engaging post was published December 30: “This President spends a lot of time apologizing for America. He should be apologizing to America.” It generated 26,004 “Likes” and 2,620 comments.

Paul’s was his Christmas Day message: “Merry Christmas everyone. Wishing you the best with your family and loved ones today,” which generated 22,406 “Likes” and 2,969 comments.

For Gingrich, it came December 2. It was a message which read: “Two hours after I’m sworn in as President, and by the time Obama lands in Chicago, I will have forty percent of Obama’s government dismantled,” and includes a video link to a Gingrich interview by Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Santorum’s most engaging post was a December 13 reaction to the cancellation of a proposed GOP debate by Donald Trump. It generated just 822 “Likes” and 63 comments.

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.