Rick Santorum: The Rodney Dangerfield of Candidates?
By Mark Rhoads
How dare Santorum win a state by 22 points over Romney when every pundit in the world says Romney should measure his drapes for the West Wing. According to the CNN exit poll, the only group Santorum lost to Romney were those voters making more than $200,000 per year.
Louisiana also puts to rest the myth that Santorum is losing among Catholics. He carried both Catholics and evangelicals, men and women, urban and rural, very conservative and moderate. Newt Gingrich has slipped for spoiler to irrelevant by dropping from 30 percent in Alabama and Mississippi to 16 percent, third place, and no delegates in Louisiana. Yet Newt is still telling every animal at every zoo he alone is able to debate Obama. Such delusions are best treated in clinical case studies.
This Santorum victory in Louisiana will get zero coverage on cable news. (There is no media bias for Romney and it is all in my imagination.)
The fact remains that so far Romney has won only three states (Arizona, Alaska, and Idaho) that carried for the GOP in 2008. Santorum has now won eleven states, all but two of which carried for the GOP in 2008 with Minnesota and Iowa as the exceptions. The other nine Santorum states are reliably deep red states. The territories won by Romney have delegates but not electoral votes.
Exit polls did ask questions about the Etch-A-Sketch flap and it did hurt Romney in Louisiana. It might not have if it did not reinforce the empty suit stand for nothing image that Romney already has.
