Tuesday night was a great night for Rick Santorum. He won the caucuses in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota; all states where the polls said the front runner, Mitt Romney, was supposed to win. Santorum, with these three victories, catapulted himself into second place with 72 delegates. He is now only 40 delegates behind Romney, and 40 delegates in front of Gingrich. What is even bigger news is that in the most recent Wall Street Journal poll showed Santorum beating Obama 45%-44%. It is not a big victory and the poll may have a conservative slant to it, but the poll still shows Santorum beating Obama while in the same poll Romney loses to Obama Romney 44% to Obama 46%. In all the more reputable polls, Rasmussen and Gallup, Romney is still the front runner for the GOP nomination and Santorum is still in third place behind Gingrich. I will predict a Santorum Surge to take place moving Santorum to second behind Romney in all the polls in the coming days. However, what do these caucus victories mean for the GOP race and is the Santorum surge going to continue?
Santorum’s victories are exactly what every Democrat especially President Obama wanted to see. A conservative beat out a moderate where the moderate was predicted to win. This shows a divided republican base, and the more divided the voter base for the GOP is the easier victory will be for President Obama. (Easy being a relative term) Romney has once again lost momentum, and I attribute it to his slip of the tongue he made after winning the Florida Primary. “I do not care about the poor in this country there are safety nets for them and if the safety nets need fixing I will fix them.” I know it is not a direct quote but you get the full picture. Romney, with this quote, looks out of touch with the average American and he gave every liberal and every person on Obama’s reelection committee the perfect sound clip to completely bash him. I have even heard some conservatives say that this exposed Romney’s weakness of not being a conservative. They say that no conservative would say anything like that because it in no way aligns with conservative social engineering. (This response took into context the entire quote Romney made, which I have not provided) You can be the judge if that is true or not. The fact is that Santorum is gaining momentum, but will it last?
The most recent Rasmussen Poll asked likely GOP primary voters “who is most likely to be the GOP nominee.” 75% of likely GOP voter believe that Romney in the end will be the GOP candidate. This is the most important poll I have read all day. This shows us that even though Santorum beat out Romney in three states, the majority of Republican voters believe that Romney is still their best candidate. Santorum now knows he is in striking distance of the lead. He is only 40 delegates behind, which if he wins one or two more states he can become the front runner in the GOP primary race. The biggest sign of hope for Santorum was the WSJ Poll where he beats Obama while Romney loses. The vast majority of Republicans and most Americans are just looking for the best candidate to beat President Obama. If more reputable polls start showing that Santorum can beat Obama and Romney cannot win then the Santorum Surge will over power the GOP race and he will have the best chance to win. Santorum has to show that he is the best candidate to beat Obama, while Romney has to remind America why he is the front runner and why all the polls show he is the best candidate to beat Obama.
Santorum’s caucus victories solidify that the 2012 election will be a “clothes pin election,” (a term given to me by my great government teacher Mrs. Lappas) an election where the voters will vote for the candidate who stinks the least. Romney smelt terrible after his slip of the tongue last week and the conservative Santorum did not smell too bad in Colorado, Missouri, or Minnesota. I am not trying to undercut Santorum’s victories. I am just giving an analysis of what the polls show America about Santorum’s victories.