Santorum would be a much better president than Romney if we could just appoint him. I don't have any doubt that Rick is more conservative. But yeah, the real problem with Santorum is he would lose in a massive landslide and take our House majority down with him. He'd be a horrible general election candidate who would scare off nearly every moderate, indie and youn(er) voter who will consider the GOP for economic issues but be repelled by Santorum's social crusading.
Romney will likely lose narrowly. Santorum would lose in a crushing landslide. Newt gives us the best chance to change the dynamics and pull out a win.
And another thing that ticks me off about the media is that, despite all their exit polls and hordes of pundits, they did not at all cover the surge that Newt had in the last week. He was way behind in TN and OK a couple weeks ago, and surged at least 20 points. What hurt him in TN and OK was the early votes. If there wasn’t so much early voting, he might have won OK and contended for the lead in TN.