Santorum's Swagger Swells

In a Tuesday morning news show appearance, Rick Santorum said he's confident of a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses, with the former Pennsylvania senator's poll numbers on the rise and The New York Times' Five Thirty Eight blog now projecting a third-place finish.

"When it came down to crunch time, the last two weeks when they started to study all the candidates and compare the records, they decided to start moving in our direction and I'm very confident we're going to finish well today," Santorum told Fox & Friends Tuesday morning. "I don't know what. But I feel very confident that we're not going to be finishing last as most had predicted." (Read more at Politico.)

In an interview last week with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, Santorum upped the ante in the race for social conservative votes by saying that he would not only support a federal marriage amendment, but also would favor invaliding lawful marriages of same-sex couples.

"I think if the Constitution says, 'Marriage is this,' then people whose marriage is not consistent with the Constitution," Santorum said. "I'd love to think there's another way of doing it."