Santorum's wins get him NO Delegates!

[Maimonides]

Seems that the GOP party establishment has set-up rules to make sure no matter what the voters say, they will get the candidate they want!

http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2012/02/rick-santorum-gains-momentum-not-delegates-from-three-state-sweep/RaE59X2zL5hAPLwppUeNPN/index.html

Despite a three-state sweep last night, Rick Santorum gained exactly zero delegates to this summer’s Republican National Convention.

What he claimed was critical momentum in his party’s nominating contest, while Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich earned a repudiation of the frontrunner status they each have held during the campaign.

That is most troubling for Romney, who has not only tried to cast himself as the inevitable nominee, but whose trump card has been his claim of having the nationwide organization, financing, and institutional backing to compete in all 50 states.

Now, after eight contests this year, Romney has won three, Gingrich has won one, and Santorum has won four on shoestring budget.

Pre-vote polls also showed the former Pennsylvania senator was propelled to victory last night on the strength of his personal popularity - the cinching quality that, to date, has eluded both Romney and Gingrich.

“I don’t stand up here claiming to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” Santorum told supporters chanting “We pick Rick” during a rally in St. Charles, Mo. “I am here claiming to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

It was heady stuff for a candidate who was denied a similar party - or the momentum it would have inevitably created - when he was initially ruled an eight-vote loser instead of the ultimate 34-vote winner in the leadoff Iowa caucuses.

Santorum gamely soldiered on in New Hampshire, the next state to vote, but lost like the others in a primary contested in the backyard of Romney, a summertime Granite State resident and former Massachusetts governor.

Santorum then saw Gingrich capitalize on a pair of strong debate performances and go on to win in South Carolina, a neighbor to the former House speaker’s own homestate of Georgia.

Then the former senator got strategic.

While a pro-Romney super PAC blasted him and Gingrich with attack ads in Florida, Santorum largely quit the winner-take-all state to focus on yesterday’s voting - the first multi-state contest of the 2012 GOP primary campaign.

He was perceived so strong in Minnesota, which was holding caucuses that can be won by a relatively small but motivated group of supporters, that Romney bailed on the state once governed by supporter Tim Pawlenty to instead concentrate on Colorado.

The problem was that even before Romney arrived last week for appearances amid his successful Nevada caucus campaign, he was greeted by a similarly robust Santorum effort in Colorado. It, too, held caucuses yesterday.

And then Romney himself bypassed Missouri, an important general election swing state but one that was holding a confusing non-binding primary vote yesterday.

Santorum ended up beating him there, too, going three-for-three for the day.

“Conservatism is alive and well,” he proclaimed in launching his victory speech.

“Your votes today were not just heard loud and wide across the states of Missouri and Minnesota, but they were heard loud and louder all across this country and particularly in a place I suspect maybe in Massachusetts, they were heard particularly loud tonight,” Santorum added, referring to Romney’s headquarters in Boston.

Nonetheless, the usual purpose of primaries and caucuses is to dispense delegates to the national nominating convention, and none of the three states that voted yesterday did that.

Sean Spicer, communications director for the Republican National Committee, noted in an email Monday that Colorado was holding a a non-binding precinct caucus.

Its 36 delegates will be chosen at district conventions held March 31-April 13, and at the Republican state convention on April 14.

Minnesota also held a non-binding precinct caucus.

Its 40 delegates won’t be chosen until district conventions held April 14 -21, and at that state’s Republican convention on May 5. Furthermore, those delegates are not committed to an individual candidate unless the convention passes a resolution binding them.

Missouri, meanwhile, changed course on its primary mid-stream, and Gingrich was not even on the ballot yesterday.

Missouri traditionally votes the first week of February, but Republican lawmakers tried last year to move it to March to avoid sanctions from the RNC, which wanted to slow down this year’s nomination campaign.

Infighting blocked the effort and the state GOP ultimately decided to hold the primary as scheduled - at an estimated cost of $7 million - but not start awarding its 52 delegates until precinct caucuses scheduled for March 17.

It will continue at district conventions on April 21 and the Republican state convention on June 2.

For all those reasons, Santorum’s wins yesterday are more about momentum than delegates.

And if he can’t capitalize on it in upcoming voting in Arizona and Michigan on Feb. 28, and the 10-state “Super Tuesday” contests on March 6, he may not claim the full prize he expected last night when the district conventions, caucuses, and state conventions begin in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri on March 17.

All of the candidates except Paul are converging Friday in Washington for speeches to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the venue where Romney ended his campaign four years ago.

It should be a hospitable environment for Santorum as well as Gingrich, who remains a conservative darling, but something of a challenge for Romney.

While he leads the delegate race, Romney has yet to assuage the conservative critics who continue to hold sway over the nominating contest.

That was evident in the three losses he suffered last night.

Santorum won Minnesota, where Romney was backed by Pawlenty, a former governor, and where he headed immediately after winning the Florida primary just a week earlier.

Furthermore, Romney placed third - behind Santorum and Ron Paul - in the same state he had won in 2008.

In Missouri, meanwhile, Santorum beat Romney by a better than 2-to-1 margin, a key test since they were essentially head-to-head without Gingrich on the ballot.

But the most stinging rebuke may have come in Colorado, a general election swing state where Romney beat John McCain in 2008 and campaigned heavily during the past week.

This time around, he lost to Santorum by 5 percentage points.

“This was a good night for Rick Santorum,’’ Romney told supporters in Denver, “but I expect to become your nominee.’’

A top adviser underscored the spin in a memo released to reporters.

“Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest,” wrote Romney political director Rich Beeson. “John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents will notch a few wins, too.”

Unlike his rivals, Romney is running a true national campaign, with his name on the ballot in every state and an organization and surrogate speakers representing him in each location.

Last week, both he and Gingrich were in Nevada, but Romney kept up a far more aggressive campaign schedule and also broke away to seek votes in Colorado. Gingrich stayed put on the Las Vegas Strip. Last night, he was in Ohio as the Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado results were announced.

Santorum and Paul have similarly been picking their spots, with Paul proclaiming his focus on caucus states where his hardcore band of libertarian followers can have maximum impact.

Santorum scored a hat trick last night. Paul, meanwhile, drew huge crowds in college settings the past week, but the Texas congressman finished behind Gingrich’s lackluster campaign in the Nevada caucuses, and he finished second behind Santorum in the Minnesota caucuses and dead last in the Colorado caucuses.

Nonetheless, in a battle for momentum moreso than delegates, Paul underscored the dichotomy of last night.

“We do have to remember: the straw vote is one thing, but then there’s a whole other thing — delegates — and that is where we excel,” he told a small group of supporters in Golden, Valley, Minn. “So, when the dust settles, I think there’s a very good chance that we’re going to have the maximum number of delegates coming out of Minnesota.”