Minnesota!!! Missouri!!! Colorado!!!

At some point yesterday I saw a poll that said that if the Presidential election was held today and Santorum was the Republican candidate, he would beat Obama… and I tried not to get too excited, because the last few primaries had been a bit of a letdown, with me glaring at the TV and asking loudly how anyone can vote for Romney and Paul telling me that I should probably calm down.  

I understand conservatives who support Paul and Gingrich, but Romney?  After the Florida results I was almost resigned to an election where one feels one needs to vote, but feels vaguely disgusted and slightly nauseated after doing so.

Some of you were more optimistic.  A few left comments saying not to count Santorum out yet.  And I hoped that you were right.  But I tried not to hope too much.  Because let’s face it, the last few years have been down right crushing. 

I had put my sewing machine away and had been sewing by hand for a while, finishing up snoods, when the 11 o’clock news came on.  Everyone else in the house was asleep, and my eyes were beginning to feel heavy.  I cut the last pieces of thread, wrapped myself up in Mae’s Dora blanket while looking at my computer and decided I was much too tired for a blog post. 

Then the reporter announced that Santorum had won Missouri and Minnesota and that he was tied for first place in Colorado.  If I hadn’t been snuggled up in the Dora blanket I would have jumped up and down.  I strongly resisted the urge to wake up Paul, for a solid ten minutes, and posted about it on the blog’s Facebook page.  A few minutes later I wandered in and woke Paul up to tell him the good news.  I called my mom (because at least it was only 8 in California).  I happily bounced around the house turning off lights.

This morning I woke up and ran to check on Colorado.  I opened my browser and up came the various articles on the Yahoo new ticker.  It was not even the #1 story when the page first opened, because apparently whether or not to spank a child trumps a major shift in the Presidential Primary.  In fact, Michelle William’s dress choice, the best cities for dating and “latest home style trends” also came up before the article titled:  “Mitt Romney’s rough night.”  I clicked on the “Romney” article to find a picture of Mitt, along with a quote from his political director about how these states don’t matter (I bet they would have "mattered" if Romney had won them!). 

The AP rolls on with their, “maybe if we ignore Santorum, he’ll go away” bias.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe the hype we’ve been force fed these last months about Obama “being afraid to run against Romney.”  Please.  Obama couldn't dream up a candidate who's been less consistent on pretty much any issue he'd like to bring up.    

After the Iowa caucus I switched on my TV one night to watch a debate.  It had already started and the camera was pulled back so you could see three of the candidates.  I stared at the screen for a number of minutes, wondering if Santorum had somehow not made it to the debate.  I could see Romney, Gingrich and Paul squeezed into the picture, but Santorum wasn’t there.  Finally a question went to him and the camera swung to the left of Romney and lo and behold Santorum was on the stage.  I don’t believe that’s an accident.  There are a lot of liberals out there who would very much like conservatives to forget about Santorum. 

Last night’s primaries show that we’re not going to forget about him.  The results show that there are a lot of conservatives out there that don’t want to accept choosing between Obama and Obama-lite.  Let’s remind ourselves of what Romney’s done, what his record is and why he’s really not that different from the man we’ve spent four years waiting to vote out of office.  Last night showed that there’s still time to stop the Romney train-wreck of a victory from happening and sending us into another four years with a President who thinks that unconstitutional mandates are an awesome way to govern. 

I’m actually a little excited to see what’s going to happen next.  Let’s hope that this is a sign that the tide is turning once and for all!