The GOP Minnesota caucuses
Article added on February 8, 2012 at 09:43 German time
  
The GOP Minnesota caucuses were not as expected a battle between Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

The polls were right that Santorum was leading Romney. They just underestimated by how far. With 89% of all precincts counted, Rick Santorum is already a sure winner in Minnesota with 45% of the vote, ahead of Ron Paul with 27% and Mitt Romney finishing only third with a meager 17%. Newt Gingrich finished last with 11%.

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We can only repeat our lines written after the Iowa caucuses: It remains a mystery how an important fraction of the GOP wants to beat Obama with someone who has lost his Senate seat in 2006, who has never held executive office, who advocates the teaching of intelligent design and who opposes contraception (Santorum: “It's not OK because it's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be” (Peter Wehner in Commentary).

Outside St. Louis, Missouri, Rick Santorum told a cheering crowd regarding Romney: “We doubled him up”. He criticized Romney as a moderate and added: “Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota”. He said: “I don't stand here and claim bo be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

A senator against a former senator who has at least had four years of training on the job (with mixed results), that sounds like a recipe for a Republican disaster in November.

More articles on the 2012 GOP race: Romney wins Colorado, GOP Missouri Caucuses, Florida primary results, South Carolina primary, Perry endorses Gingrich, Huntsman endorses Romney, Romney wins in New Hampshire, Romney after Iowa.