Maybe Santorum is smart enough to know this, and maybe this is what he is working toward. Santorum's voters are not smart enough to even fathom this electoral game; and that's why Santorum is tailoring his message for this bloc of voters. Same as Huckabee in 2008.
Newt gave him a chance to take Michigan, and he blew it, perhaps deliberately.
Santorum had a chance to take Ohio, and he blew it, perhaps deliberately.
Maybe Santorum knew the game being planned in Virginia, and didn't bother to get on that ballot.
As it stands now, Newt is looking like the only sincere non-Romney candidate.
Interesting insult there.
Perhaps you agree with the Washington Post's offensive comment from 1993 that conservative Christians are "largely poor, uneducated and easily led"?
Painting voters for a candidate with a broad brush of “not smart enough” does not seem like a tremendously intelligent thing to do for a conservative Republican.
For those who want a historical background to understand a bit about why evangelicals often get angry at comments like this, read this article analyzing Sarah Palin's anger at those who mocked her faith: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20110411/column11_st.art.htm
You'll get no disagreement from me that the near-miss losses of Santorum in Michigan and now Ohio are extremely unfortunate. A Michigan win by Santorum could potentially have knocked Romney out of the race. An Ohio loss would have done serious damage to Romney and given Santorum tremendous help. I'm no more happy than you that he lost both states by narrow margins.
But to argue that Santorum may have deliberately lost those states seems very unlikely.