So how does that theory fit with the substantial DOWNTURN in turnout compared with 2008? Surely if folks were angry, more would come out and vote. This shows that if it's an issue, it's a fringe issue only (at least in terms of voting proclivity and intention).

Which is what anyone with some sense of proportion would have known from the start.

Not sure how I feel about Santorum. But Romney just gives me the creeps. Now and then you hear some pundit say Romney's "obviously a very decent man." Well, maybe. But what I see is a weird and even a bit scary robotic quality, as if there were no one behind his eyes, no soul in there. It disturbs me even more when I find numerous other people have the very same impression of Romney. It's one thing to be something of a stiff. It's another to be as robotic and artificial as he is. I remember in the early debates, he would finish up every statement with a mechanically put on smile.

Perhaps Frank Rich is not reliable, but in a recent article (in New York mag, I believe) he discusses this mechanized empty quality of Romney, and claims that when Romney was back at Bain, he didn't go out with his colleagues, and his colleagues when they got together would realize they had no idea who Romney was.

Pundits have also spoken of Romney "not connecting" with voters. They are talking about the same thing. It's as if there is no one there to connect with. Just a very advanced manikin.

If there's nobody in, as it seems, then who or what is running the shop? With other candidates, I feel like I can sense the person animating the gestures, the soul or spirit of the person. Not in Romney's case. Gives me the willies. Is Romney his own puppet? Is he a manipulator without a soul? Or perhaps something else's puppet? I think Romney the Stepford president should make us nervous and queasy.

But maybe I'm just paranoid and have watched too many Twilight Zone episodes.

“A vote for Rick Santorum tonight was the easiest and most immediate voter path to protest Obamacare and Obama’s pro-abortion view.”

It is stunning that the Obama administration has, in such a blatant and arrogant fashion, announced to the American people that the heartfelt and sincere assurances we received from President Obama and Speaker Pelosi about Obamacare and abortion were untrue; that the Executive Order he signed was a meaningless gesture to appease Americans whose concerns he sought to dismiss. In fact, the more we find out about Obamacare, the more we realize that most everything its champions told us about it were lies. It was never intended to decrease the cost and improve the quality of healthcare. It was always intended to decrease the freedom of the American people and expand the power and reach of the federal government.

People voted against Romney because of his 'i dont care about poor people remark'- that does not go down well with Christians or independents and will haunt him until november.

Santorum is the best candidate by all standards except one: the Establishment has decided that Romney is "it", and how does a candidate overcome THAT?

Santorum represents conservative values better than Mitt does.

If Santorum wins, we won't have to wonder whether he'll actually stand for conservative principles vs. whether he will "give away" any and all conservative issues.

If Santorum wins, he will stand for pro-life values. If Mitt wins, he will defend Obamaromneycare. The choice really shouldn't be difficult.

“A vote for Rick Santorum tonight was the easiest and most immediate voter path to protest Obamacare and Obama’s pro-abortion view.”

Actually it is the opposite - a vote for Rick Santorum is very much like the delusional denial which gave the Democratic Party a gift in Delaware. It is selecting a career Washington Politician who will absolutely reelect Barack Obama.

Rick Santorum has no executive experience, no sincere private sector ability, no genuine economic insight, wants to regulate the free expression on the internet, even is talking about bans on contraception.

Rick offers a level of ugly self righteous indignation which is deeply unattractive. And his endless contradictions are vivid. This is a Beltway Politician who reportedly ran on a Federal Level Mandate in 1994. He endorsed Arlen Specter over the more sound Toomey, opposes "Right To Work" to appease Labor Unions, even supported the "Bridge To Nowhere".

In PA Santorum even played the old Senatorial con game, moving his Family to VA, pretending to still live somewhere else:
"* Records ultimately showed that Santorum lived exclusively in a $600,000+ near-mansion in Virginia. This is another thing you need to understand about Pennsylvanians to appreciate just how damaging this was to Santorum. On paper, Santorum claimed his residence was a $90,000 modest house in a suburb of Pittsburgh, when in reality that house was abandoned and Santorum was REALLY living in a house six times as expensive in another state. Here in Chicago, $600,000 can’t buy you a big house, but in Pittsburgh it would land you a palace…so the people who heard about Santorum’s residency scam were enraged that he “abandoned the state” and “lied to his constituents” by living in what they perceived to be a mansion instead of the Penn Hills residence he claimed."

As the Primary unfolds, we see many moments in which the once sound side seems very eager to provide more self destruction. It is clear, the dysfunctional nature amongst us only is only providing the worst. Rick Santorum is another very bad political offering who will not only help reelect Obama, he will send many in the opposite direction.

@ WWTJDO: Guess what: by your own screwy logic, Obama ought to be re-elected, because he's had on-the-job executive training -- an "experienced" Chief Executive, someone who's actually been President already, and proven he can get his legislative agenda through Congress, or dictated by his czars!! Who needs an election? We already have a very "effective" executive.

You're right, he would help re-elect Obama.

I've voted Republican for president in 9 elections now - my entire voting life.

If Santorum gets the nomination, guess what?

I'll vote for Obama.

I actually see him as the lesser of two evils in exactly the area that people seem to be crowing about, social issues. In my opinion, he would actually do more to try to promote legislation dictating moral positions than Obama.

And BTW, been a Christian my entire life, and still practice the faith. But that's my personal decision, don't need someone legislating it.

NRO readers should take careful note of Old Fan's latest post, because it is quite typical of just about every post left on this site by him -- and other Romney supporters -- over the course of this entire campaign.
He does not even attempt to make one positive argument in favor of his candidate. Instead, it is the same reflexive, nasty hatchet job launched by Romney supporters against every other candidate they believe might post a threat to their man's ascension. The attacks are ad hoc, often deeply personal and come from left or right, depending on whatever they perceive to be the supposed vulnerability of the challenger.
When Perry got in, he was immediately and simultaneously savaged for wanting to fundamentally reform Social Security and for supposedly being ideologically impure on immigration, even though in the latter case Perry had been considered a border hawk in Texas and even though, in the former case, his SS critique was virtually indistinguishable from the one Romney made in his own book. Worse, Perry's real jobs record was demeaned and trashed even though the attacks undermined every argument in favor of conservative tax and economic policies advocated for decades by free market champions.
When the Romney people saw Gingrich as the threat, they resurrected ethics charges against him which anyone with knowledge of those events knew had been a trumped up, partisan investigation that never found any violation of law; and was in fact nothing more than Democrat payback for Jim Wright and political decapitation of the GOP's leading spokesman at that time.
Now, they are going to assert that Santorum -- a candidate third on my personal list, because of economic and tax policies I consider timid, anemic and far too close to Romney's -- is somehow corrupt, despite the fact that even his political enemies would agree that he is a man of exemplary character, long admired for his decency.
Is this what Republicans want? A man who cannot muster one defensible, positive argument in his own behalf? A candidate whose response and whose supporters' response to any challenger is to assassinate his character, demean his reputation and distort his actual record beyond recognition? If Trump wrote "The Art of the Deal," then Romney should write, "The Art of the Smear," because when this empty suit of a candidate is finally ushered off the stage, the only reminder of his presence will be the stench he left behind.