Super Tuesday

O.K. Wednesday: So...the day after everyone tries to figure out who the winner is from Super Tuesday in the Republican presidential race. Mitt Romney? Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum? Or no one? Romney won more votes, more states and more delegates. So that makes him the big winner. Eh? It seems hard to say that when once again, Romney just can't seem to convincingly show the country he has this thing. He failed to win Tennessee and Oklahoma, which could have helped him quiet some of this talk that he can't win in the South. Having said that, he has to be relieved that he won Ohio. It was far from a dominant win. But it does help push back Santorum's efforts to find another surge.

Santorum did well enough last night to keep going. But the delegate math sure makes it seem unlikely he can win the nomination barring a monumental Romney collapse. How much do you think he wants Newt Gingrich to drop out? Romney relies on far more money, both his own and the pro-Romney SuperPAC, to beat Santorum. What if he didn't have access to all that cash and what if he didn't have the name identification a candidate does after running for president for the better part of the past 6 years?

Gingrich won his home state of Georgia. Other than that, he had another pitiful night. How much longer can he keep this up? I suppose as long as as the pro-Gingrich SuperPAC keeps writing checks, Gingrich can stay in the race. But even Gingrich himself will have a tough time putting his own spin on history to show how he is a viable possibility for the nomination. Although, it seems as long as he stays in, he benefits Romney and stops Santorum from getting his 1-on-1 shot at the top spot.

And Ron Paul? As each week goes by, Paul shows he has less and less chance to be relevant. The race has gone through nearly half the states now and Paul has zero victories. Wow. Not a single state. Caucuses were supposed to be his thing because primaries weren't. But nothing's really working out so far. Maybe he just enjoys the time sharing his views with the eager young voters he still brings out at events and keeps his name out there until his son, Rand, launches his campaign 4 years from now?

Super Tuesday just didn't seem so super for any of the candidates. And because of that, the race keeps going.