May the Vest Man Win

Yesterday was huge for the GOP nomination. After last night the states now look like this:

Santorum IA, MO, MN, CO (4); Romney NH, FL, NV (3); Gingrich SC (1); Paul (0). I think Paul and Newt should pack up and go home.

Folks I never would have expected this, but I think it is a two man race between Romney and Santorum and yesterday really hurt one of those men.

Erick Erickson at Red State pointed out that yesterday, the Romney Team was saying we should ignore the "beauty contest" in MO and focus on CO. Um . . . Okay! Now that we have done that here are some thoughts. Public Policy Polling was the only organization to pick up on the huge shift and they were the Paul Revere warning that Rick Santorum was coming. As they said, “We picked up Santorum's big night, but not nearly magnitude of it. This came from so far out of left field not sure any polling organization would have.”

Colorado (beside being the place where I grew up) is ground zero for this election. Not only was it a huge upset last night, but looking forward to November every Democrat plan that I have seen includes Colorado as the key to delivering Obama’s victory. In other words, if Obama takes Colorado, he will be a two term president. On the other hand, if he loses it, stick a fork in him, because he is done.

I am sure that both Romney and Obama were displeased with the electoral change of fortune when Colorado delivered last night’s decisive victory for Santorum. Santorum said in the last few debates that he believes that he is the best candidate to take on Obama on the issues, specifically Obamacare. Then we went dark. He went to these states carrying his message about how the details of Obamacare are bad policy and not just “unconstitutional.” And it seems to have worked.

Although I am shocked like everyone else that Rick Santorum has taken on the giant and won (at least for now), I will take this opportunity to talk a little bit about him.

The first time I met Rick Santorum, was when he came to Patrick Henry College and gave a forceful counter to the Hillary Clinton book It Takes a Village.

He had just written a book called It Takes a Family and was talking about how the government should never usurp the authority of the family. And he puts this into practice in his own life. He is a homeschool father of seven. While in the United States Senate, Rick Santorum was the champion of the Partial Birth Abortion ban that President Bush signed into law.

I may post more about him as I have opportunity, but I’ll leave you with this: I believe that Rick is gaining traction because he speaks with authenticity to all three major parts of the Republican Party’s base; Limited Government, Social Values, and Strong National Defense. Romney says the same things, but his authenticity struggles.

What do you think? Is it a two man race now?

-Written by Jeremiah Lorrig