[Steelfish]

"This is a huge, huge night for Santorum" says CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Gingrich says he'll fight on all through Tampa. Exit Polls say Gingrich and Santorum split Tea-Party and male vote.

[NavVet]

Hopefully, the N-ewt Pelosi crowd will now call it quits.

[Yashcheritsiy]

Good for him. There’s absolutely no reason for Gingrich to drop out after two extremely close 2nd place finishes that even two weeks ago looked impossible for him. Santorum seriously underperformed tonight, and most of his loss over the last two weeks appear to have shifted to Newt. The trend may yet be Newt’s friend.

[Cicero]

Newt’s supporters won’t be pleased by this. But, thank God, Romney was edged out anyway. It was very close—although if you put the two conservatives together, Romney lost by a 2-1 margin.

Hard to say where Ron Paul voters would go if he dropped out. But he won’t, anyway. He is too fond of himself to do that, and he seems to enjoy being a spoiler. Plus, it does seem likely that Romney has promised him the VP-ship for Rand if he wins with Ron’s help.

[Dengar01]

I've made up my choice, but Rick needs to come visit Illinois before visiting Puerto Rico. I am pretty sure we have more delegates and the right wing vote after tonight will go to Santorum.

As I said earlier I've been all over the state the last few months, no Romney signs but lots of Santorum signs.

If I get in trouble for admitting my vote, I apologize to those who still support Newt who I respect, but I am voting for Rick Santorum and hopefully my fellow IL FReepers do and the rest of the conservatives in this hell hole state come out in droves for Rick!!!

[lightman]

By hanging on Gingrich can tip the nomination to Mittens in the hopes that he would then be “entitled” to the VP slot.

[RIghtwardHo]

It is now the time to ask this question ... why does Newt want Romney nominated? Because he obviously does.

Santorum 2012

[kempster]

This primary season has been very eye opening for me. Many of those that I felt to be solid Conservatives have been exposed as establishment shills. Pawlenty, Christie, and Snyder are just a few that come to mind and will never get my vote for dog catcher.

[weston]

Democrats continue to vote for Santorum in open primaries. He’ll be toast in the general against Obama.

[Antoninus]

I'm ok with Newt staying in. He can't win at this point, but he can make Romney's life really difficult by picking his spots and running hard against Mitt in some key states. I just hope he doesn't hand Romney any more victories in winner-take-all states like he did in Michigan and Ohio.

NOW is the time for us to unite to defeat Romney--and it looks like Santorum is the man.

[Belteshazzar]

The real problem is that all the GOP candidates are weak candidates, all are flawed candidates, and all for different reasons. It isn’t going to be easy in the fall no matter who faces B. Hussein.

[Diogenesis]

Romney cheated as usual.

“35 Romney endorsers received contributions first”

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