You consider Santorum a spoiler yet Gingrich came in 4th in Iowa and 5th in New Hampshire. If anything, Gingrich is a spoiler. Good logic!
Hardly,
Santorum got a boomlet at the right time, nothing more, he’s already faded and will continue to because he isn’t being supported because of anything he’s done, but because he was the last guy standing that wasn’t Romney. Romney launched attack dogs against Gingrich when he started to rise, and non romney folks who were beginning to move to Newt looked for another option and Santorum was the last guy standing.
Now that the heat is on, and folks are going to actually investigating and seeing Santorum’s record etc, he will (and already is) fading, just like Cain, Bachmann, Perry etc before him.
Santorum won’t see anything near 20% of any primary from here on out, but if he stays in the race and draws 10-15% which he will likely do at least for a while, Romney continunes “winning” with only 30-40% of the vote.
Like it or not there are and only ever have been 2 first teir republican candidates in this race, and Santorum was never one of them.