The Santorum Conundrum The road to Tampa now looks long and winding

摘要

The mantra of the 2012 campaign ("Mitt Romney is a weak front runner") is truer than ever: he's still weak, and he's still the front runner. Thanks to Rick Santo-rum's impressive victories in Alabama and Mississippi, Romney remains winless in the Bible Belt South, which is the Republican Party's base, and faces resistance from GOP social conservatives. Romney's effort to force his rivals out of the race by noting that he will almost certainly have a plurality of the delegates needed for the nomination by the Tampa convention is now deader than Elvis. With Newt Gingrich determined to stay in the race, attracting a portion of the conservative vote, Santorum has to figure out how to beat Romney with a divided anti-Mitt alliance. While some big financial backers are pressuring Romney to find new advisers, other politicos are placing the onus on the candidate and think he should talk less about the electoral process and more about what he would do as President.