2012 Express

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JIM RUTENBERG, April 10, 2012, New York Times

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Rick Santorum, with an abrupt decision to end his campaign Tuesday, cleared the way for Mitt Romney to claim the Republican nomination while dashing the hopes of social conservatives who had propelled Mr. Santorum’s surprisingly successful challenge to the Republican establishment.

Mr. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, was trailing Mr. Romney in delegates and had little hope of catching up to him, but his strong performance in a brutal nominating contest established him as a force that the party will probably have to reckon with this presidential election year and beyond.

His departure from the race created an anticlimactic moment in the long presidential primary season for Mr. Romney, who has been actively seeking his party’s nomination for five years and found his conservative credentials constantly in question by the durability of Mr. Santorum’s candidacy. The move springs Mr. Romney from a political limbo in which he was acting like the nominee even though he faced the prospect of weeks of hard — and expensive — campaigning against Mr. Santorum. READ....

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By Christian Heinze, March 23, 2012, The Hill

Mitt Romney finally shook off some big demons in Illinois on Tuesday night — ones that have haunted him this entire race.

For the first time since Rick Santorum’s surge, Romney ate into large pieces of the former Pennsylvania senator’s base and, in some cases, swallowed them whole, expanding his support among younger voters, the middle class and Tea Party backers.

Younger voters:

One of the most consistently powerful and under-reported occurrences has been Mitt Romney’s reliance on seniors to inch him over the top in close states. For example, in Ohio, Santorum beat Romney in the four youngest age groups, stretching to age 50, but Romney pummeled him by 16 percent with seniors — enough to give him a narrow 1 percent win.

The story was the same in Michigan. Santorum won voters up to age 50, while Romney destroyed him by, once again, 16 percent among seniors. READ....

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By Joshua Spivak, March 23, 2012, MarketWatch

In an attempt to tarnish Rick Santorum’s conservative credentials, Mitt Romney appeared to take off the table the possibility of selecting Santorum as his vice presidential nominee, deeming his main opponent to not have the “fiscal conservative chops.”

This shouldn’t be a surprise. While every presidential run has similar discussion of a “dream ticket” scenario, it is relatively rare that a presidential contender chooses the runner-up as a vice presidential selection. And for good reason — it would probably hurt more than help.

History tells the tale. Since John F. Kennedy tapped second-place finisher Lyndon Johnson in 1960, there have been only two other runner-ups selected to run as VPs, John Edwards in 2004, and George H.W. Bush in 1980. Edwards did not spend most of his campaign attacking John Kerry. And George H.W. Bush was selected only after Reagan had a high-profile flirtation with former President Gerald Ford. While Joe Biden ran for president in 2008, he finished very far behind and dropped out immediately after the Iowa caucus. READ....

 

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By David Gibson, March 14,2012, Washington Post

Does Rick Santorum’s Southern surge also herald the return of the Religious Right?

Last January, the titans of Christian conservatism were widely dismissed as irrelevant, at best, after 150 of them gathered for an evangelical “conclave” at a Texas ranch and anointed Rick Santorum as their champion — only to see him finish third in rock-ribbed South Carolina a week later, well behind Newt Gingrich and even their least-loved candidate, Mitt Romney.

Now, however, with Santorum on an roll after big primary wins on Tuesday (March 13) in Alabama and Mississippi, those born-again bigwigs and their allies may be having the last laugh.

“People have been writing the obituary of the pro-family, evangelical movement for 25 years — and they’re always wrong,” said Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the architect of the Christian Coalition in the 1980s.

The support of the evangelical political establishment is also important, and growing. Not only did Dannenfelser’s SBA List invest big money and volunteer hours into Santorum’s bid, many of the Christian leaders from last January’s summit were part of another gathering last weekend in Texas with Santorum where some 200 conservatives pledged to raise at least $1.78 million for his campaign and SuperPAC. READ....

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By John Hoeffel, March 13, 2012, Los Angeles Times

Responding to a question Tuesday about whether a Newt Gingrich-Rick Santorum ticket was possible, Gingrich offered a vague, but tantalizing answer: "I wouldn't be surprised, once we're through the primaries if it still looks like it does now, to see the conservatives come together."

But the former House speaker, interviewed in the radio studio of "The Rick & Bubba Show," said he thought he would campaign up until the Republicans nominate a presidential candidate.

He predicted Mitt Romney would fall short of the delegates needed to win outright and said the convention could be the most exciting since 1940, when no nominee had it locked up.

"There's a certain advantage, I think right now, in having both of us tag-team Romney because neither one of us by ourselves can raise the money to match Romney," he said. "With Rick and me together, we're really slowing him down with some help frankly from Ron Paul." READ....

 

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