Free Republic

As Rick Santorum desperately tries to make a dent in Mitt Romney’s formidable delegate lead, he faces an unlikely obstacle on the primary calendar: his home state of Pennsylvania. Yes, Santorum is currently favored — though hardly a lock — to win the popular vote in the state he represented in Congress for 16 years. But Pennsylvania’s non-binding primary rules for distributing delegates raise the prospect that Santorum, who has said he’ll win the vast majority of the state’s delegates, could actually come away from next month’s primary empty-handed at a time when he can ill-afford it. Which means the...

Supposedly Team Paul is engaged in "initial discussions" with Santorum and Gingrich too, but c'mon. Newt's chances at the nomination are only slightly higher than Paul's are and Santorum's hawkish social conservatism makes him a total nonstarter for libertarians. Just today, Reason editor Matt Welch published a column shivering at the thought that Team Sweater Vest might be back for another try in 2016. Romney’s the only game in town for the rEVOLution, just as he’s been since the debates started. (According to Time, one of Romney’s allies joked that Paul is their “deputy campaign manager.”)This is the right time...

(CNN) – Newt Gingrich is edging out his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in Mississippi, according to a new poll. The American Research Group survey of likely Republican primary voters released Friday showed Gingrich with 35% support, followed by Mitt Romney with 31%, Rick Santorum with 20% and Ron Paul with 7%. Gingrich's margin over Romney increased slightly among those who said they will definitely vote in the March 13 primary, 37% to 30%. Santorum garnered 17% support and Paul received 5% among the same group. The poll was conducted after Super Tuesday, when each of the GOP White...

For one brief moment, Rick Santorum was the ideal Republican candidate for 2012, the perfect consonance of Don't-Tread-On-Me libertarianism and traditional cultural conservatism. When asked about contraception, which Santorum and the Catholic Church hold to be destructive of marriage and family, Santorum replied, "You know, here's the difference between me and the Left, and they don't get this. Just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean I want a government program to fix it. That's what they do. That's not what we do." This helped explain why so many liberal politicians and journalists were misunderstanding or lying about what Santorum...