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It's far from clear whether the crowds he's drawing are a sign of support. As Santorum held one event in a downtown Dubuque mall, Gerry Ryan stood around the edges. "I work here and it's my lunch hour," Ryan said, adding that he had no plans to attend a caucus. "It's just curiosity." But David Betts of Dubuque, who also hovered nearby as he weighed which candidate to caucus for, said, "I'm open to him," adding that he needed to know "why I should vote for him instead of the others." If Santorum's campaign is close to the grass roots, it also has an occasional feel of playing it by ear. After hearing Santorum speak at a town hall in Independence, Ben Lange, a local activist who ran for Congress, joined in and insisted on squiring the candidate around to a local business. In the middle of the day, many people were on the phone and not terribly impressed to have a presidential candidate around. On Thursday, the campaign scheduled a photo-friendly stop at a candy store in Wilton, only to cancel it. The store, it seems, was closed. For all the talk of strength, Santorum's campaign tacitly acknowledges a money problem. Aides issued a plea for help after polls showed him gaining ground. Money will become increasing crucial after Iowa's precinct caucuses, where Santorum had two years to rattle around in a pickup truck and convince activists one by one. There's only a week between Iowa and the New Hampshire primary, and the race turns to South Carolina and Florida later in the January. Much of the contest will be waged on the air in those states. Santorum is undeterred. "I'm excited to go to New Hampshire," he told activists in Coralville. "Iowa provides the spark, but there's plenty of timber on the ground that will start burning in those other states."
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