I think that nominating Santorum (or someone else from the far social-conservative / tea-party right) could actually end up being good for the party. After the resulting Democratic landslide in the Electoral College, the GOP would finally have the reason and hopefully the willpower to marginalize the right-wingnuts for once and for all.
This. The GOP needs to just go ahead and nominate a far-right social conservative once so they can get all the crazy out of their system. Then the tea partiers will never be able to say again, "If only we'd nominated a
real conservative..." and the party can move on.
