The day after the Michigan and Arizona Republican primaries one of the savviest political observers I know said, “If Rick Santorum wants to have any chance of defeating Romney for the nomination, then he should go to Georgia and knock out Gingrich.”
Lo and behold, look where Santorum was yesterday:
Rick Santorum, hoping to narrow the Republican presidential contest to a duel with Mitt Romney, put pressure on Newt Gingrich yesterday in his old home state of Georgia, suggesting that a loss here on Super Tuesday could force the former speaker out of the race. … [snip]…
Gingrich, whose once high-flying campaign has been reduced to a battle for the state he represented in Congress for 20 years, bluntly acknowledged that he must prevail in Georgia, although he stopped short of saying he would drop out if he lost. Polls show him holding a strong, but not dominant, lead in the state, and trailing in the nine other states that vote Tuesday.
“I have to win Georgia, I think, to be credible in the race,” Gingrich told the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce yesterday. “But if I win Georgia, the following week we go to Alabama and Mississippi and I think I’ll win both of those, and we have a good opportunity to win in Kansas.”
Newt’s right. But if he loses his home state of Georgia, then Santorum is the one positioned to go to Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas and Missouri later this month as “the one true conservative who can beat Romney”. It’s still a long shot; but it may be the best shot Santorum (and the Anyone-But-Romney faction) has left.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
