Photo: Dilip Vishwanat for The New York Times
Rick Santorum won a clean sweep of three states last night: Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado.
Now, these contests are largely symbolic - no delegates were awarded in any of them. But symbols matter, and Romney's failure to sustain any momentum from his Florida win last week is another embarrassing and wounding sign that his party has very little enthusiasm for him. He is still the front-runner and the heavyweight in this campaign. He can devote ten times as many resources as any rival to the 11 Super Tuesday competitions on March 6. But he hasn't killed off this race off as a competitive event yet and by now, he really should have done.
The brilliant Nate Silver was one of the few pundits to foresee that Santorum might do better than people expected in these midwestern states. In that post he also argued that Santorum, not Gingrich is now Romney's most dangerous opponent. Santorum is more disciplined, more consistent and has more of a direct line to evangelical voters than does Gingrich.
Last night's results supported Silver's proposition; Gingrich did poorly. Newt, of course, is on a personal mission to destroy or at least damage Romney. But at this stage, he could achieve that most effectively by pulling out of the race, leaving Santorum as the sole conservative anti-Romney.
Gingrich may know that, in his head of heads. In the battle between Newt's brain and Newt's galactic ego, however, I suspect the latter will win, and keep him in the race until he is forced out.
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