If you’re thinking Santorum’s support would automatically go to Gingrich, I disagree.
I think that support would have gone to/stayed with Gingrich already if voters did not have such great reservations about the potential for Bad Newt to show up.
Santorum has benefitted from being the Not Romney AND the Not Gingrich candidate.
I think Santorum’s support would go to Romney.
Santorum support will got to Gingrich, if it was going to go to Romney it would already have done so.. Romney has been at 30% or whatever it has been since day one.
You are right, folks going to Santorum are folks who may not like everything to do with Gingrich, but sure aren’t going to Romney, given a choice between the two, the overwhelming majority will return to Gingrich... which is where most of them came from in the first place. Already see it happening in SC.
Santorum basically is just the last guy standing for this boomlet ideological purity crowd to jump to, but they will soon see he’s not as pure as they want him to be, nor up to the task. Just as Bachman, Perry, and Cain before him. Santorum is at best a VP candidate, and given how hated he is in PA, that makes him actually being selected as one difficult, but ability wise, that’s where he is, he’s VP Tier at best, not big show tier, not even close.
If Santorums the nominee, Obama’s machine will run him over, and pull out a squeaker, but pull it out none the less. Santorum gets painted as unsafe/radical, you get a 3rd party to peel off a few percent and you get Obama II with a plurality.