Rick Santorum is the projected winner in the Minnesota and Missouri Republican contests, a surprising revival for a candidate whose campaign has flagged since winning Iowa in January. In addition, he is leading the early returns in Colorado’s caucus.
“Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” an exuberant Santorum told Missouri supporters in his victory speech.
While Missouri’s circumstances are odd enough to allow Romney some leeway in spinning the results, a Santorum victory in Minnesota’s caucus is a tough setback and losing Colorado would only make it worse. Romney won Colorado big in 2008, taking more than 60% of the vote, and won Minnesota with 41% of the vote. Minnesota’s last governor, Tim Pawlenty, is Romney’s national campaign chair and has served as his most prominent surrogate since ending his own presidential run last August. Despite Romney’s various advantages in Minnesota, he was running third behind Ron Paul with 37% of votes counted Tuesday night. Simply put, he has no excuse for a weak performance in either state.
Missouri occupied a strange place in the race — because of a quirk in the scheduling, its primary doesn’t actually count towards determining its delegates and turnout was reportedly very low. In addition, Newt Gingrich was not on the ballot. Gingrich told CNN on Tuesday that he didn’t take Missouri’s results seriously and was turning his attention to states like Ohio next.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/rick-santorum-wins-missouri-primary.php?ref=fpa
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