Free Republic

SAN JUAN, P.R. — The pickup truck that carried him through Iowa is long gone, replaced by a small motorcade of S.U.V.’s. There was a police escort, and a phalanx of Secret Service agents. The sweater vest was gone, at least for the day, and Rick Santorum, the winner of the last two presidential primaries, was smartly turned out, in a dark suit and power tie, when he held a half-hour private meeting with Gov. Luis G. Fortuño of Puerto Rico.The two men did not take questions from reporters, but allowed photographers to capture the moment. With the cameras whirring,...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The plodding Republican presidential nomination fight is grinding forward toward Puerto Rico — and a two-man race, with Rick Santorum ascendant and Mitt Romney vanquished in the Deep South. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the former Georgia lawmaker whose Southern strategy stalled, was all but relegated to an asterisk in the contest even as he vowed to stay in it. “Now is the time to pull together,” Santorum declared to conservatives in Lafayette, La., after winning Tuesday’s primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, urging the party’s faithful to unite behind him to beat Romney. “We are...