Why Santorum's victory last night meant Nothing

The media is scrambling over the fact that Rick Santorum swept the three states which held their Republican caucuses last night. This, coming on the heels of Mitt Romney's wins in Florida and Nevada, has seemed to throw the Republican presidential nomination race into turmoil according to the media. However, it is not as complicated as the media is portraying it to be. The facts speak for themselves and those who investigate them should be able to see this clearly. Last night's results changed nothing. Rick Santorum will not be the Republican presidential nominee. All that his victories showed last night was that Mitt Romney's campaign is beginning to lose momentum. If that continues, then last night was possibly the turning point which has begun to sink Romney's once-promising campaign.

What is this? Santorum won all three states did he not? Yes he did. He won the vote convincingly in all three states did he not? Yes he did. So what is this? Why isn't this the surge which propels Santorum to victory in Tampa? Follow me on this examination of the facts and you will see why this is most likely just the swelling of pride before Santorum's ultimate fall.

Remember last month in South Carolina? The race looked like a toss-up and it seemed as if Romney might win just because of the division among the conservative ranks. Then, quite suddenly, Newt Gingrich surged and won South Carolina, propelling him higher in the polls. All were mystified as to how Gingrich had suddenly come out of nowhere and won the South Carolina Primary. Then the explanation slowly began to come out. Gingrich had slammed the news media in South Carolina in a convincing, fighting fashion and had inspired voters to follow him. The surge was enough to win South Carolina for Gingrich and to keep him in second place in Florida. However, as the fervor over that stunning performance began to fade, Gingrich began to fall and he lost the momentum. The memory only stuck around for so long. Now Gingrich is struggling to even keep his campaign alive.

Santorum's surge is similar, but it is not because of anything Santorum himself did. Rather, it was because of an action by the Obama administration. President Obama and the Department of Health and Human Services mandated in late January/early February that religious employers must provide medical services such as contraceptives and abortions to their employees even if those medical practices were at odds with the religion's doctrines. This action provoked outrage from several religions, but especially the Catholic Church. The Catholic bishops promptly responded with pastoral letters warning Catholics that opposition to this action by the Obama administration had to be undertaken. As the Abortion issue is one of Santorum's primary concerns politically, many pro-life religious citizens swarmed to vote for the man in the Republican race who was best seen as the champion of the pro-life cause. This explains Santorum's sudden surge and unexpected victories in the primaries last night following his dismal fourth-place showing in the Nevada caucus.

Santorum's surge is a temporary respite for his campaign. Once the fervor over the Obama administration's actions cools and forms into actual intellectual and political opposition, then Santorum will struggle to maintain his place and whatever momentum he has. Santorum has a very mixed record in the healthcare field and his opponents will bring it to the forefront to be sure over the next couple weeks. This will inspire doubts in the minds of many and Santorum will suffer a Gingrich-type implosion which will sink his campaign.

In addition to this explanation of his sudden surge and why it will fade, Santorum's campaign has some other very major flaws which will deny him victory in the end. First, Santorum's extreme lack of organization has denied him a chance at many unpledged delegates in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado. Those delegates can only be won by those candidates who actually organize their supporters into running for delegate positions. The only vote which Santorum won last night was the straw poll vote which showed who the majority of voters in those states felt best about at that particular moment. In Missouri the delegates will not even be elected for another month and nothing was decided last night except the voters' preference at that particular moment. Second, Santorum, like Gingrich, is not eligible for a large number of delegates due to a lack of ballot access in certain states, without which he cannot hope to win the nomination in a four candidate race. In addition, recent news out of Indiana reveals that Santorum has failed to meet ballot access requirements for that state as well. Failure to obtain ballot access in even just a few states can be quite deadly to any presidential campaign. Third, Santorum's campaign has always been extremely short on money, and though he has picked up some donations as a result of last night's publicity-grabbing victory, once the surge fades, he will find himself short on cash again and likely unable to continue. Fourth, if Santorum continues to have public meltdowns on the debate stage like he did last month in Florida, (which is very likely considering his strong feelings against the views of two of his fellow contenders and the fact that Santorum does tend to get very emotional in some of his public responses), then the public will turn away from him as they turned away from Rick Perry after his debate meltdowns.

In all, do not read too much into Santorum's victories last night. They really mean nothing. If Santorum does manage to win some pledged delegates in upcoming primaries in Michigan and Arizona, then he might work his way into a bargain-maker position at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. However, the only way Santorum becomes the nominee is if the Republican National Convention becomes a brokered convention where delegates are released and bargains are made. Even then, considering how small his delegate count will likely be, that seems unlikely. In all probability, Rick Santorum will walk away from the Republican National Convention in August into the sunset of a once-promising career, cut short by an inability to stick to certain principles and to organize what followers he had.

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