Santorum's Clean Sweep

Rick Santorum's victories last night in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri make it hard to argue that he's not the last hope for a "not-Romney" candidate. In addition to that, he's clearly the best candidate in the field, and, as the last several Rasmussen Daily Polls have shown, the one with the best chance of beating Obama.

My friends at The American Catholic, Don McClarey and Paul Zummo, each have excellent posts analyzing yesterday's results and what they portend for the remaining GOP primaries and for the general election.

In addition to agreeing wholeheartedly with their assessments, I offer my own take on what it means.

Missouri was an expected win, Minnesota was a maybe win, but Colorado is an almost epic upset. Romney won both Colorado and Minnesota 4 years ago by huge margins over John McCain, and last night was a big loser to a guy on a shoestring budget. He finished a measly third in Minnesota. The Romneybots would like to spin this as "no big deal", but this is just yet more proof that Dullard Flip Rino is unable to close the deal with GOP voters and conservatives.

Yesterday's events are important because of what they mean for the alleged "electability" of the relative candidates. Romney's sole argument in this election has been that he is allegedly the "most electable" candidate and that his nomination is therefore inevitable. Santorum has just punctured both Romney's inevitability and electability arguments.

Again, Santorum beat Romney in two states that Romney won handily 4 years ago - Colorado and Minnesota. And, as for Missouri, they don't call it "the bellweather" for nothing. In the General Election, Missouri is almost always the best predictor of the final outcome of the entire presidential election. (Ohio, whose primary is one month away on March 6, 2012, is another such state, although not as good a predictor as Missouri. For what it's worth, Santorum currently leads Romney here in the Buckeye State in a head-to-head matchup.)

Finally, all 3 of these states will likely be important swing states in the General Election against Obama. Yesterday's outcomes show that Romney is not as "electable" in these swing states as he would have us believe. Certainly not as electable as Rick Santorum.