Rick Santorum has managed to gain some traction in Iowa and move up to barely third place. While it is theoretically possible Santorum’s late advance might allow him to beat expectations in the Iowa caucuses, from a long term perspective Mitt Romney has little to fear even in the unlikely event of a big Santorum surge over the next few days.

Santorum has very little money or national support. As of September 30th the Santorum campaign had less than $200,000 cash on hand. Nationally Santorum’s support is only at 5 percent according to Gallup.

Most importantly though, Santorum is widely seen as unacceptable by the Republican base. Only about a quarter of Republicans would consider him an acceptable nominee while 62 percent consider him unacceptable. From Gallup on December 5th:

Among the Republican base Santorum managed to rank as the least acceptable candidate. He ranked lower than Rick Perry, Ron Paul and even Michele Bachmann.