There were three states that had voting on Tuesday. They were Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota. Rick Santorum won all three, two of which were basically a landslide. In Minnesota, Ron Paul took second place, pushing Romney down to third.
It was an incredibly good night for Santorum. It was an incredibly bad night for Romney and Gingrich. It looks like the anti-Romney people who can’t support Ron Paul are turning away from Gingrich and towards Santorum. Gingrich is almost done, unless there is some dramatic turnaround (which wouldn’t be far fetched in this roller coaster race).
It was a bad night for Romney too. He is still the favorite to win, but his odds went down a little after the Tuesday sweep by Santorum. Romney is no longer seen as a lock. With Ron Paul and likely Santorum in this race for the long haul, it will be hard for Romney to get a majority of the delegates by the convention.
While Santorum’s philosophy disgusts me, it was still a positive thing for Ron Paul. It slows down Romney and allows for Paul to push on with his message of liberty. The longer that he has debates and a platform to express his views, the more libertarians there will be for the future.
Santorum really is disgusting. He preaches religion and morality and yet he sees no problem in killing innocent people in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere. He is pro-life when it comes to fetuses in America. He is anti-life when it comes to foreigners. You can’t even claim that it is just foreigners with a different religion, as there were many Christians who died in Iraq. If Santorum has his way and bombs fly in Iran, then there will be Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others who will die as a result.
Of course, Santorum is also bad on economics. He supported many of the big government policies of the Bush administration. He supported more spending and more centralization of government. He was also a big supporter of anti-liberty acts like the so-called Patriot Act.
Again, while I despise Santorum, I am happy he had his three-state sweep. It hurts Romney and Gingrich and it allows Ron Paul to carry on with more momentum. If Santorum somehow miraculously became the Republican nominee, Obama would wipe the floor with him, unless Obama does something really stupid in the next 9 months, which isn’t out of the question.
The next round of debates, starting in a couple of weeks, will be interesting. There will be opportunities for Ron Paul to change more hearts and minds.