In the wake of last night's sweeping three-State victory for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum in the Republican nominating process, the talking heads who have attempted to convince America that Mitt Romney is the inevitable Republican nominee are attempting to justify this increasingly untenable and utterly ridiculous position by writing off the Missouri Primary, where no delegates were officially at stake last night, as a "meaningless beauty contest." It wasn't meaningless because Missouri does have a caucus upcoming for which last night's vote stands as a clear springboard. Secondly, and more importantly, the Missouri Primary shows that if you pit Mitt Romney against one clear conservative candidate, the conservative doesn't just beat Romney, they crush Romney like a political rag doll.
Rick Santorum carried every county in Missouri last night, including the City of St. Louis, where Romney had initially been projected to do well. Santorum defeated Romney by 19 points in St. Louis, and in St. Louis County, Santorum beat Romney by nearly 24 points. Statewide in Missouri, Rick Santorum's margin of victory over Mitt Romney was well over two-to-one. In Republican Caucuses in both Minnesota and Colorado, Santorum rolled to convincing wins. The so-called frontrunner not only finished third (Ron Paul finished second), but finished 28 percentage points behind Rick Santorum, and did not carry a single Minnesota county, and in several southern Minnesota counties, Romney-the supposed "inevitable frontrunner"-finished last.
The former Massachusetts Governor did somewhat better in Colorado, which has a higher Mormon population (we must be honest in admitting that Mitt Romney is getting around 90% of the Mormon vote, and his coreligionists were a significant factor in his Nevada Caucus victory). However, even in winning metropolitan Denver and much of northwestern Colorado, it was not enough to overcome Rick Santorum's convincing wins in nearly every other locale, and Santorum's numbers in the counties Romney did win showed that Santorum was literally at Romney's back.
Mitt Romney will win the upcoming primary in Michigan, where he is a favorite son candidate-he was born there and his father was Governor of Michigan. Romney will likely do well in Arizona, again because of his Western connections. The test for Romney will be on March 6th, and as of today there is no assurance that Mitt Romney will carry Ohio, and if conservatives begin to congeal around Rick Santorum, it spells trouble for Romney even in Tennessee where Santorum has no pledged delegates.
The race for the Republican nomination will be far from over as Tennesseans go to the polls on Super Tuesday, and that is a good thing for everyone in every State that will be voting March 6th.
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