Santorum can be blamed equally for splitting the vote. Had he dropped out when he was still at 2%, we would be able to argue that Newt Gingrich would be our nominee by now.
Give me a break, the man has won 2 primaries, his home state and the state next door.
Gingrich was ahead twice, the meaningless time before Iowa when Rick Perry once held a huge lead until he showed himself unable to debate, and briefly between NH and Florida. After losing Florida he was done and Romney would have run away with it if there wasn’t another candidate in the race.
Newt has not done well because of his past and the fact that people do not like him for the most part except on FR. He is unable to relate to the voters. He has also ran a poor campaign. He had some good people but he didn’t listen to them and thought that he and Calista knew better.
Here, all his warts are wiped away, not so outside the bubble of FR. The people remember him colluding with the Global Warming crowd and posing with Nancy. That does not inspire trust.