HOLLIS, New Hampshire -- Rick Santorum's adman and longtime adviser, John Brabender, told BuzzFeed today that he believes the former Pennsylvania senator's late surge has re-invented the American political campaign.
"We feel that we've created a new model of political campaigns," said the Pittsburgh-based consultant, who is traveling with his client in New Hampshire.
Santorum does not have a campaign pollster, Brabender said, and the flood of cash coming in as a result of his status as the main conservative alternative to Mitt Romney won't be used to bring in more high-level advisers.
"People think that we’re going to staff up with all these consultants and so forth," Brabender. "It’s not going to happen."
Santorum "does not want to be controlled," he said. "He feels that people can see through that."
He also jabbed at rival campaigns who built larger organizations.
"Some of these campaigns ran up big debts talking about how to fight deficits in Washington," he said, in an apparent reference to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Brabender's optimism has an ironic edge. Santorum got where he is by running a very traditional campaign, with -- as his adviser Hogan Gidley said today -- just "a hamburger and a road map of Iowa."
Now he's hoping the rules have changed, and that Santorum can take his message to the nation without much of a map at all.
This is a great comeback story