Remember when I was writing all those posts about the possibility of a brokered convention for the Republicans? The premise was that Romney would never be able to close the deal and that Republican voters would vacillate between Romney and at least two other candidates. Whenever Romney won something, the base would rebel and go running to an alternative. When that alternative proved unpalatable, they’d move to another alternative. When the second alternative proved odious, they’d go back to Romney. And the cycle would repeat long enough that no single candidate would win a majority of the delegates.
Whether or not that winds up happening, it’s clear tonight that the GOP base does not want Romney. Once they think about Santorum for a while, they won’t want him either. They didn’t want Gingrich after they had time to think about his victory in South Carolina.
What we need is for this cycle to go around for a few more cycles.
Romney will probably win the nomination but he is coming in third place tonight in Colorado and Minnesota. Rick Santorum is winning in those two contests, but he’s also winning in the beauty contest in Missouri in a landslide.
The rest of February will be spent discussing what’s wrong with Mitt Romney.
