Regarding Rick Santorum

[bballrox4717]

He'll either burn out quickly or perform even better than he did in 2012. I was convinced of the former until his CPAC speech; it still seems that Santorum is beloved by the base and unless the establishment picks a candidate early on like they did with Romney, it's going to be harder to squish Santorum out next time. He has a firm base of supporters to start out with, unlike 2012, and he proved to be an excellent campaigner.

[bballrox4717]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

Seems realistic to me when Obama isn't the candidate and Santorum has a full campaign of speeches and statements to give people a reason to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the competent candidate.

I actually agree with Phil here. Santorum drives the GOP vote up further in the interior and deep South if he's the nominee. They love him there. The states that are trending Dem fast, especially with college towns (NC and AZ comes to mind), are where Santorum gets clobbered as well as present swing states.