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[Aqizzar]

I don't know, I think the superdelegates are probably going to be more on Santorum's side than Romney's.

So far they haven't been.  See Mississippi, where Romney came in third with 29%, and took 13 delegates to Santorum's 12.

Speaking of which, I hadn't heard this yet, but that Saturday caucus in Missouri?  A significant number of delegates have not been awarded, because so many precincts became so contentious, they were shut down by police before they could finalize a vote.  How they're going to allocate their votes eventually, no one knows yet.

EDIT: Interesting exit poll: 33% of Illinois Republicans think Santorum is too "conservative", 42% think Romney isn't "conservative" enough.  One's staking new ground in American conservatism, the other is a panderbear trying to match him every step of the way.  I'm going out on a limb and saying that your average "base" Republican voter, i.e. a member of the 10-20% of the party that votes in primaries, does not know what they actually want in a candidate, but know they're not really seeing it in either of these guys.

[RedKing]

I'm not writing Santorum off yet. This has happened previously, where Romney scored a double-digit win and everyone was ready to crown him with the victor's laurels. And then Santorum won the next three in a row.

Louisiana is coming up this Saturday, and recent polls show Santorum with a 13-point lead, roughly comparable with Romney's margin in Illinois. If he can take Wisconsin and Maryland (both winner-take-all) on 4/4, he's still alive. (Romney will take the District of Columbia.)

I'll grant that the math isn't terribly favorable for anybody else at this point though.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

How any right-thinking and non-brainwashed women can seriously say they support Santorum's rather obnoxious misogyny blows my entire mind. That is the only thing that stands out to me about this whole primary, women Republicans are either self-defeating or inherently mentally retarded. But the fact that he is not viewed dis-favorably by 43% of the general women populace scares me, the PBS Newshour pointed out last week that Santorum, compared to Obama, has only a 9% gap in women opinion.

How does this happen in today's society? Or is misogyny a new attractive thing with women? Because I sure see disrespectful men being treated more and more like the norm than the exception in society in general as well.

[RedKing]

It's complicated. There's a very entrenched culture of shame and disempowerment that goes hand in hand with certain conservative strains of Christianity in the United States. I have a good friend who is still struggling to come to grips with having been raised in that kind of environment and even though she's out of that and utterly rejected it and is married to a great guy (one of my best friends in RL), she finds herself having all these knee-jerk responses to things that stem from being raised to believe that we're all miserable, dirty sinners (and women in particular...remember, this is all Eve's fault) and that our only hope is to do everything we can to make God like us enough not to throw us into Hell for eternity.

I'm guessing a lot of the female support is along pro-lifer lines. Women can be some of the most strident anti-abortionists, if they see childbirth as their sole redeeming feature.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

You'd think his support of the innocent little babies [aka the fear of women *gasp* choosing their fate regarding their uterus] would fall of deaf ears considering he supports none of the rights that women hold today. That's mostly what I'm getting at, the fact that he is viewed almost positively [statistically] makes me want to puke.

[GlyphGryph]

If you think the patriarchy and misogyny isn't propped up up by enablers in the group discriminated against... You don't understand much of the history of feminism. Many of the most vociferous opponents at each step of the process of securing women's rights were women, often those who felt their own, stable, "acceptable" role in society would be weakened. Hell, the "antifeminism" movement was STARTED by a woman -  Phyllis Schlafly.

The way things are wouldn't BE the way things are were if women weren't busy arguing against their own interests as a group. After all, they outnumber men. But many of them don't see themselves as a group but rather two groups - the "good, proper" women and "those dirty immoral sluts". And those who see themselves in the first group are, in my experience, more than willing to damage themselves if they think it will hurt those in the second group more.

Of course those distinctions don't really exist, but humans have an incredible ability to screw themselves over out of fear, spite, and sincere belief. And the fact, of course, that many of them WANT the privileges associated with their former status more than they want equal rights., and they are often "winning" under that unequal system, so why would they want it to change?

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I'm talking about those women not affiliated with Christianity or any offshoots [and/or political fronts] yet are still taking Santorum as a good leader, unless a whopping 43% of this country's women are die-hard enablers and downright treasonous to their own gender. 20%, maybe, but the rest is still a huge mystery. Does the rest of his support come from simply not knowing a damn thing about him? I'm led to believe that, as it's true in most of the American public's decisions regarding public officials.

[nenjin]

I'd argue 30% of voters at least only know a portion of what their candidate has said, voted for or believes. The rest rides purely on perception. And in that regard, Santorum "looks likeable."

[mainiac]

I'll grant that the math isn't terribly favorable for anybody else at this point though.

This.

Also, as a resident of Maryland's conservative regions, I'd be very surprised if Santorum wins this state.  Romney will probably clean up around Baltimore, Washington and Annapolis where most of the states voters live.  The republicans in these areas are wealthy and should make up most of the primary ballots.  The eastern shore is rural but affluent so shouldn't favor Santorum too strongly.  The southern region is religious and conservative but there's not too much of it so he should only rack up a few tens of thousands there.  The west is rural and relatively poor by Maryland standards but isn't enough to drown out the margins that Romney will have from the rest of the state.

[RedKing]

Yeah, given the levels of support Romney was getting in NoVa, he'll probably win Maryland. Can't actually find any polling data yet for MD, but I'm sure some will come out over the next week or two. I think Santorum does have a good shot to win Wisconsin, though.

I can still hold out hope that either Santorum's or Gingrich's campaign will collapse and one of them will concede and strengthen the other. Based on every poll out there, an Obama v. Gingrich general election would be the most lopsided ass-whooping since Reagan v. Mondale.

[nenjin]

A potato could run against Gingrich and probably win at this point. Which would be really interesting because voters would have a difficult time telling them apart.

[RedKing]

A potato could run against Gingrich and probably win at this point. Which would be really interesting because voters would have a difficult time telling them apart.

Moral superiority. That's the dead giveaway. If the potato wants more than one person to butter it at the same time, that's Gingrich.

[Descan]

Oh, I thought you meant "morally superior". I.E. the tuber.

[Old Bones]

The republican candidate hopefuls are all ridiculous jokes. They try to get votes by trying to prove how conservative they are.

Oh and also they all hate the fuck out of gay people. That group includes me so they can all go fuck themselves.

[Aqizzar]

As [Jeb] Bush’s endorsement rattled about Twitter and the blogosphere, Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom flubbed a question on CNN when he was asked if the campaign plans to retool its message in the general election

“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign, everything changes,” Fehrnstrom said. “It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch, you can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

Nothing to see here, just one of Mitt Romney's top advisers doing his every opponent's work for them.  Once again, one wonders how well Mitt Romney would be doing if everybody didn't keep trying to shoot him in the foot, or conversely if he didn't have all the money and connections in the world to campaign with.

Oh yeah, and former governor of Florida Jedidiah "The Smart One" Bush endorsed Romney.