With his narrow defeat in Ohio on Tuesday night, Santorum missed his chance to send Mitt Romney reeling, and to become the arguable front-runner for the Republican nomination. But Santorum didn’t fare poorly enough to slink off and call it a campaign. The former Pennsylvania Senator has made clear that he’s staying in the race, especially as it heads into a batch of Southern states where Romney, who fares best among well-educated, high-income, non-evangelical Republicans—might find a lukewarm reception.
And as long as he sticks around, Santorum is sure to keep steering the political conversation towards the issues of religion, morality and sexual mores that have come to define his political identity, but which may be causing the Republican party severe damage with the moderate swing voters they’ll need to beat Barack Obama this fall. And don’t discount the possibility that Newt Gingrich drops out of the race, suddenly creating a head-to-head contest between Romney and Santorum (with Ron Paul nibbling at the margins) that could spell Rommey’s doom.
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