By taking all three contests last night, Rick Santorum has not only stopped Mitt Romney cold, but he's severely damaged Newt Gingrich to boot. In the back rooms of the halls of GOP power, there are a lot of depressed Republican party officials who now know without a doubt that this mess will go all the way to August's GOP convention in Tampa.
Considering Romney finished a distant third in Minnesota and in Missouri, with Gingrich not even on the ballot, Romney managed only 25% of the vote, the message couldn't be louder: the GOP base is now in open revolt against Mitt Romney's front-runner status.
And if it's possible, Gingrich had an even worse night. He ignored all three states and it showed. He wasn't even on the ballot in Missouri and came in dead last in Minnesota and only a percentage point ahead of Ron Paul in Colorado.
The larger problem is that for Romney, not doing any better than 35% in the Midwest contests means that not only that Romney isn't the front-runner, but in many respects he never was.
It's wide open now. And I couldn't be happier. Next stop: Maine's caucus on Saturday, and then Arizona and Michigan on Feb. 28. Because the real losers last night? The entire GOP party. Turnout for these caucuses and Missouri's primary was in every single case less than 10% of voters, and in the case of Minnesota, less than 50,000 people turned out. 63,000 in Colorado. Both were far fewer than 2008 numbers. Missouri's roughly 200,000 primary turnout was just one third of 2008's number.
Republicans are staying home. They are despondent, depressed and don't give a damn about their candidates, because they're losers. They know they can't beat Obama.
Music to my ears.
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