Scene near the city of Brandon in central Mississippi, June 22, 2008 (Bill Wasser)

The three main contenders for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination virtually split the vote in primary elections in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday.

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both of whom claim to be the conservative alternative to frontrunner Mitt Romney, failed to stage a decisive victory in the Southern states which were expected to be unfriendly territory for Romney.

Santorum’s strong social conservatism resonated with evangelical voters but Romney outperformed both him and Gingrich, as he has done in other states, among wealthier and urban voters.

Exit polls revealed that most of Santorum’s supporters decided to vote for the former Pennsylvania senator while Romney was winning primary races in Arizona, Michigan and Ohio last week. Theirs may not have been a vote for Santorum rather a vote against Romney whom they consider to be a moderate because he once favored abortion rights and implemented a health insurance scheme in Massachusetts when he was governor there that is strikingly similar to President Barack Obama’s national health reform law.

As long as Gingrich remains in the race, Santorum will be hard pressed to consolidate the right wing vote to challenge Romney who is well ahead in the delegate count and whose campaign organization is far superior to that of the other candidates.

Although Gingrich is a native of Georgia, where he won the primary contest convincingly last week, none of the contenders could claim to be a true son of the South perhaps except for Texas congressman Ron Paul. His libertarian views are diametrically opposed to Southerners’ social conservatism however and he failed to make an impact in the Alabama and Mississippi votes.

He former House speaker hadn’t lived in his home state for decades until he first stood for election in 1974. He hoped to do well in Georgia’s neighboring states but Santorum did better among right wing voters and managed to narrowly defeat Romney despite Gingrich’s presence in the race.

Gingrich has vowed to soldier on but is no longer credible as either a regional or viable candidate.

In Alabama, were forty-seven delegates were at stake, Santorum picked up at least eighteen compared to Gingrich’s twelve and Romney’s eleven.

In Mississippi, were thirty-seven delegates were selected, Santorum won thirteen compared to twelve for both Gingrich and Romney.

The two states will also send three unbound delegates to the nominating convention in August each. Because these are usually local party leaders, Mitt Romney, if he is the heir presumptive, would probably win their support.

There were also primary elections in American Samoa and Hawaii on Tuesday. Mitt Romney won the most delegates in these contests as he did in Guam and other Pacific island territories on Saturday.

The United States Capitol building in Washington DC (Getty Images)

Americans not only elect a president this fall. There are also thirty-three Senate races across the country while all members of the House of Representatives must fight for reelection.

Republicans are poised to do well in these contests. Even if they lose seats in the House, they could win a majority in the upper chamber and claim control of the legislative branch.

Given the weak field of Republican presidential candidates—Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee, has seen his disapproval ratings among centrist voters rise as a result of a nasty nominating battle with two right wing challengers—perhaps conservatives should consider winning back Congress their priority this November?

“If Republicans do,” writes influential columnist George Will in The Washington Post, “their committee majorities will serve as fine mesh filters, removing President Obama’s initiatives from the stream of legislation.”

Such a restoration would mean that a reelected Obama, a lame duck at noon January 20, would have a substantially reduced capacity to do harm.

Without a friendly majority in the Senate, President Barack Obama’s bureaucratic and judicial appointments could be blocked while Democratic legislations would fail to pass or be repealed—although repeals are subject to presidential vetoes.

In the Senate, Republicans are defending ten seats, seven of them safe. Maine and Nevada are less reliably Republican but according to opinion polls, Democrats stand little chance of gaining ground there. Only Massachusetts senator Scott Brown’s seat may be in jeopardy because the northeastern state usually favors Democrats but Brown is considered a moderate and his challenger very left wing.

Republicans, then, have little to lose—unlike the Democrats whose senators for otherwise red states Nebraska, North Dakota and Virginia are retiring. Republicans are fielding strong candidates there as well as in Missouri, New Mexico and Wisconsin. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, traditional swing states, could further change party while the popular West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, a former Democratic governor of the state, is vulnerable.

Recent polls predict an even split between the two parties in the Senate if the races that are currently “undecided” break evenly. Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Wisconsin and Virginia are all in the “tossup” category. Republicans victories in at least five of them would tilt the balance in their favor.

In the House, the outlook is even better for Republicans. They won back control of the lower chamber in 2010 and are unlikely to lose it this year although their majority could shrink.

Generic congressional ballot polls suggest roughly an even split between voters of the two major parties but far fewer identify as Democrats than Republicans.

If there is divided government, Republicans will likely hope to convince the president to enact deeper spending cuts and tax reforms which are needed to balance the budget and help stir economic growth.

Reform of the nation’s major entitlement programs, which Democrats have hesitated to pursue, could still have to wait until there is a Republican in the White House.

Although President Obama has recognized that something must be done to rein in the rising costs of public health care and retirement programs, his solutions—rationing care and asking wealthy seniors to waive their right to a fully funded government pension—are unpopular on the right.

Republicans’ solutions—replacing the direct financing of seniors’ medical needs with an insurance subsidy and privatizing Social Security—are wholly unacceptable to the left. But if they push ahead with such plans nonetheless, as they did last year in the House, would the president veto? He and other members of his party may be glad to let Republicans take responsibility for changing these very popular welfare programs in the hopes of winning again in 2016.

Former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough of Florida appears on NBC News' Today show, March 8

Despite his Super Tuesday wins, including a narrow victory over rival Rick Santorum in the critical general election battleground state of Ohio, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has still not convinced his party that he represents their best chance of beating Barack Obama in November.

Romney’s disapproval ratings among independent voters have risen dramatically over the course of the primary campaign to such an extent that there are calls for other candidates to enter the race late.

According to former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, the party is “on its way to an historic defeat in the fall unless they’re able to drag in some other candidates.”

Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and a Politico commentator, said on the Today show he would be “asking others to get into the race” if he were leading the party. He specifically mentioned former Florida governor Jeb Bush and the incumbent Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who has endorsed Mitt Romney, as potential candidates. They are both popular with conservative activists and could appeal to the middle of the country.

According to opinion surveys, a majority of Republican primary voters is both dissatisfied about its choices and uncomfortable with the possibility of a Romney candidacy even if more than 60 percent of voters expect the former Massachusetts governor to eventually clinch the nomination.

Romney, also a former businessman, is perceived as a moderate by the conservative base of his party because he once favored abortion rights and implemented a health insurance system in Massachusetts that is markedly similar to President Obama’s signature health reform legislation which Republicans fought fiercely and hope will be repealed.

While conservatives would rather have a candidate that is more right wing, centrist voters, who will decide the outcome of November’s presidential election, increasingly regard the Republican Party warily because of its reactionary positions on social issues.

As Scarborough pointed out, “the gender gap now is over 20 percent” which is probably because Rick Santorum has described contraception as a “grievous moral wrong” and “a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be” while Republicans in Congress battled a federal mandate that compels religious schools and hospitals to buy insurance plans for their employees which cover birth control.

“That’s a landslide waiting to happen,” said Scarborough. Without the women’s vote, the Republican candidate couldn’t possibly win.

Moreover, “only 14 percent of Hispanics say they would vote for any of these Republican candidates” because they are seen as anti-immigration.

George W. Bush, by contrast, won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000 which enabled him to carry Florida by an incredibly slim margin and win the national election.

If Rick Santorum’s strong social conservatism is an impediment, Newt Gingrich’s bombastic rhetoric is equally troubling. He routinely describes the president as a radical and accuses him of pursuing a “war on religion.” He is the least popular among voters who do not identify as Republicans.

Scarborough dismissed Newt Gingrich’s candidacy in January, after the former House speaker had staged a surprise victory in South Carolina’s presidential primary, describing Gingrich as “the vessel” for Republicans “who want a brokered convention.”

A brokered or contested convention is possible if, by late August, when the party is supposed to formally nominate a candidate, none of the four men who are currently in the race has accumulated enough delegates yet to win on a first ballot. Someone who didn’t participate in the primaries, like Chris Christie or Jeb Bush, could be nominated there once the delegates are “released.”

Some 40 percent of delegates has been selected so far. Large states including Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, New York and California have yet to vote in the primary contest. Each has a huge numbers of delegates at stake.

Gingrich, Santorum and Ron Paul stand little chance of gathering enough delegates between now and August to win the nomination outright but Romney faces a similar challenge: he would have to win half of the remaining delegates to become the nominee without risking a contested convention. If all of his three rivals stay in the race, and they have no reason to drop out, that may well be impossible.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney participate in a Republican Party presidential debate hosted by Fox News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, January 16 (Getty Images)

Republican voters across ten states participate in their party’s presidential nominating contest on Tuesday. With more than four hundred delegates at stake, it is the largest primary to date.

A resounding victory for one of the four candidates is unlikely because the states that vote on “Super Tuesday” this year are spread across different regions of the United States, each with different conservative demographics. This also means that each of them has something at stake though. As The Washington Post outlined last week,

Romney needs to emerge as the overall winner if he hopes to prove he is the genuine frontrunner. Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, wants to show that the GOP race is a two person contest and that he has the political appeal to win. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich needs a victory in Georgia to justify continuing his candidacy. Paul needs a breakthrough that has eluded him all year.

Despite recent primary victories in Arizona, Michigan and Washington state, Mitt Romney still struggles to connect with right wing voters. He is perceived by them as a moderate because he once favored abortion rights and implemented a health insurance scheme in Massachusetts when he was governor there that resembles President Barack Obama’s unpopular health reform legislation.

Although it may cost him the sympathy of centrist voters, who will decide the outcome of November’s election, Romney has to appeal to the right of his party to clinch the nomination.

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are vying for the same voting bloc. Both claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney and hope to consolidate this position on Tuesday.

Ohio, with sixty-six delegates, is considered the main battleground state. Georgia wields more delegates but a Newt Gingrich victory is all but certain there because it is his home state.

If Romney wins in Ohio, he would prove his ability to appeal to both working class voters and a critical swing state constituency. Ohio will have eighteen electoral votes in November.

The grandson of a coal miner, Santorum, who was a senator for neighboring Pennsylvania, another traditional swing state with twenty electoral votes up for grabs in the fall, has performed well across the “Rust Belt” of America, once industrial states that have seen wages decline and jobs moved overseas.

In February, he won preelection contests in the Midwestern states of Minnesota and Missouri and he nearly beat Romney to victory in his home state of Michigan.

Santorum’s strong social conservatism however—he opposes abortion, contraception and gay marriage and advocates a greater role for religion in public life—does not endear him to women and moderates which renders a Romney win in Idaho, Massachusetts and Vermont all but certain.

The former businessman also polls fairly well in Alaska and North Dakota although Ron Paul could have an advantage in these states’ caucuses. Gingrich and Santorum battle for evangelicals and Tea Party adherents in Tennessee and Oklahoma.

In Virginia, the other two candidates are not on the ballot and Romney has only to beat the Texas congressman who is highly unlikely to be the nominee. The state offers forty-nine delegates, all of which could be Romney’s if he wins in each of the state’s eleven congressional districts.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican Party presidential hopeful, speaks to supporters in Mesa, Arizona, February 13 (Gage Skidmore)

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney affirmed his frontrunner status on Tuesday when he won primary contests in the states of Arizona and Michigan. The former Massachusetts governor won all of Arizona’s twenty-nine delegates for the nominating convention in August. Although he beat rival Rick Santorum narrowly in his home state of Michigan, both candidates picked up eleven delegates there.

Romney, who was born and raised in Michigan, won the state with a 9 percentage point lead over John McCain in the 2008 primary. That was before he said to oppose government support of two of the state’s largest car makers however. His margin of victory was just over thirty thousand votes this time.

In a victory speech in Novi, Michigan, Romney said, “We didn’t win by a lot but we won by enough and that’s what counts.” He may as well have been summarizing his entire campaign.

Even if Santorum also opposed the auto bailouts, he was able to convey the image of a working man’s Republican who promised to reinvigorate manufacturing in America.

The grandson of a coal miner, Santorum, who was a senator for Pennsylvania, a traditional swing state with twenty electoral votes up for grabs in the fall, touts a tax reform plan that would disproportionately favor manufacturing companies. He rejects global warming as a leftist conspiracy and would allow energy companies to “drill everywhere” for oil and natural gas.

An afterthought in the primary race for all of 2011, Santorum staged a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses in early January. Earlier this month, he won preelection contests in the Midwestern states of Minnesota and Missouri. According to opinion polls, he does well across the “Rust Belt” of America, once industrial states that have seen wages decline and jobs moved overseas.

Here, he says he could appeal to “Reagan Democrats” or union workers who may be tempted to vote Republican, as they voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, if they perceive the Democratic candidate to be an elitist who is out of touch with their everyday struggles when the Republican speaks their language.

It is this very voting block that Romney has failed to enthuse. Political groups that are affiliated with the Democratic Party have gladly made use of his call to “let Detroit go bankrupt” in 2008 to portray the former businessman as a callous billionaire who doesn’t know about the plights of ordinary Americans.

Romney is perceived as a moderate, moreover, because he once favored abortion rights and implemented a health insurance scheme in Massachusetts when he was governor there that resembles President Obama’s unpopular health reform legislation. His nationwide support has hardly ever exceeded 25 percent. Just a third of right wing voters believe that he’s the best candidate.

Among independents, too, Romney’s popularity is declining instead of improving which is a challenge to his campaign which likes to portray their candidate as the most electable among the four Republicans who are in the race.

Certainly, Rick Santorum would be harder pressed in a general election to sway centrist voters. His industrial policy may appeal to blue collar voters who otherwise trend Democratic but his strong social conservatism worries even members of his own party.

On abortion, contraception and gay rights, including marriage, his beliefs do not align with the views of the majority of Americans.

Even if he promises not to craft policy based on his faith, Santorum rejects the total separation of church and state. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country,” he told ABC News’ This Week on Sunday.

Santorum championed welfare and Social Security reform as a senator but is far from the ideal, small government conservative that the Republican base hungers for. He admitted as much in 2006 when he argued that most conservatives do not embrace the notion of personal autonomy. “Some do,” he admitted.

They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want.

According to Santorum, it is “not how traditional conservatives view the world” although this more libertarian view on what should be the role of government, especially in people’s personal lives, resonates across the political spectrum, from leftists to Ron Paul supporters.

By throwing a scare into Romney in a state where his father was once governor, Santorum did establish himself as the conservative alternative in the primary contest. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich must avenge himself in the South next week when ten states vote at once on Super Tuesday or become totally irrelevant.

Ohio, with sixty-six delegates, will be the main battleground state on February 6. If Romney wins here, he would prove his ability to appeal to both working class voters and a critical swing state constituency. Ohio will have eighteen electoral votes in November.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican Party presidential candidate, appears on Fox News Sunday, February 26

In a rare Sunday morning talk show appearance, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said he was a “solid” and “committed conservative with the kind of principles I think America needs.”

The Republican presidential hopeful appeared on Fox News Sunday days before the Arizona and Michigan primary contests on Tuesday. The presumptive nominee, Romney is likely to carry Arizona but could struggle in Michigan although it is his home state.

Romney’s opposition to the 2008 government bailouts of Detroit automakers, coupled with the perception that he is out of touch with the worries of everyday Americans, is frustrating his ability to appeal to blue collar voters in the state where his father was once governor. His opponent, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, is a more socially conservative candidate with working class roots.

Rather than apologizing for his wealth, Romney argued that it was testament to his skill to make businesses profitable and promised to bring the same quality to Washington. “If people think that there is something wrong with being successful in America, then they better vote for the other guy,” he said on Fox this Sunday, “because I’ve been extraordinarily successful and I want to use that success and that knowhow to help the American people.”

I, by virtue of my experience, know what it takes to create jobs. I’ve also balanced budgets. Other people talk about doing that. I’ve actually done it as a governor, as the head of an Olympics and as a guy who’s run businesses. I’m going to get America back on track.

“In terms of connecting with the American people,” Romney pointed out that several candidates had “come and gone” in the race for the Republican nomination. “I’ve got more votes than anybody else in this race so far,” he said.

That may be true but but the electorate at large is hardly warming up to a Romney candidacy yet. Among centrist and independent voters, Romney’s unfavorable ratings have increased in critical swing states including Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. President Barack Obama is pulling ahead of him in the areas that will likely decide the outcome of November’s election where unemployment numbers and home foreclosures are still high. Here, Romney can be portrayed as the callous businessman and venture capitalist; a member of the “1 percent” who doesn’t represent the rest of the country.

The problem right wing primary voters have is that Romney isn’t quite the conservative he says he is. He tried to dispel those concerns on Sunday when he said that “the biggest misconception” about him “would be that I’m a guy that comes from Massachusetts and therefore I can’t be conservative.”

But, you know, if you look at my record in Massachusetts and see that I balanced the budget, lowered taxes nineteen times and enforce the illegal immigration laws, got English immersion in our schools, stood up for traditional marriage, was a pro-life governor.

He also described himself as “progressive” once though and promised not to infringe on abortion rights when he ran for governor in 2002.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney participate in a Republican Party presidential debate in Mesa, Arizona, February 22 (CNN)

In what may have been the final televised debate forum in the Republican Party’s presidential primary race on Wednesday, Rick Santorum made no apologies for his cultural conservatism and argued that he could win in industrial states that will likely decide November’s presidential vote.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who has risen to the top of the field in opinion polls after winning three election contests in the American Midwest in early February, has, far more than this three fellow contenders, talked about social issues, including his opposition to abortion and what he considers the disintegration of the family.

The left gets all upset, ‘oh, look at him talking about these things!’ Here’s the difference between me and the left and they don’t get this—just because I’m talking about it doesn’t mean I want a government program to fix it. That’s what they do. That’s not what we do.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is still the favorite to clinch the nomination despite his struggle to win right wing votes, agreed and pointed out that 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock. “These kids are raised in poverty in many cases, they’re in abusive settings. The likelihood of them being able to finish high school or college drops dramatically in single family homes and we haven’t been wiling to talk about this,” he said.

Although the economy and unemployment are likely to be major themes in November’s election, social issues came to the forefront last week when the Obama Administration compelled health insurers to cover contraception, including Catholic institutes which teach abstinence.

The issue, said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, whose popularity among Republican primary voters plummeted in recent weeks, is one of coercion. “When you have government as the central provider of services, you inevitably move toward tyranny,” he argued, “because the government has the power of force.”

According to Santorum, “that’s what Governor Romney did in Massachusetts” when he implemented a health reform plan there that served as the model for Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul. “It would be a difficult task for someone who had the model for ObamaCare, which is the biggest issue in this race of government control in your lives, to be the nominee of our party,” he said.

Romney promised to repeal ObamaCare if elected president because the program cuts health support for the elderly and raises taxes. The Massachusetts plan, he argued, was less complex and legitimate because individual states can mandate citizens to buy insurance where the Federal Government cannot.

Santorum’s strong social conservatism is likely to resonate with primary voters even in Romney’s home state of Michigan which votes next Tuesday. A Pennsylvania native and the grandson of a coal miner, Santorum’s working class roots contrast sharply to Romney’s image as an out of touch billionaire.

“I’m the best person from the state which is a key swing state from a region of the country which is going to decide this election,” he said Wednesday night, “across the Rust Belt of America.”

Obama would be hard pressed to win reelection in November if he isn’t able to carry Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three battleground states that wield forty-eight electoral votes between them.

The Republican candidates’ opposition to the 2008 bailout of two of Detroit’s automakers won’t go well with blue collar voters in Michigan. Santorum said that at least he had been “consistent” in his criticism of government support for private enterprise whereas Romney endorsed the Wall Street bailouts but said, “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” Romney, whose father was an American Motors executive before he became governor of Michigan, explained that he would have preferred the car manufacturers to enter bankruptcy proceedings before they received help.

Former Pennsylvania senator and Republican Party presidential hopeful appears on MSNBC's Morning Joe, January 10, 2012 (Louis Burgdorf)

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has replaced Newt Gingrich as the conservative standard bearer in the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

After huge election wins in the Midwestern states of Minnesota and Missouri this month and staging a surprise victory in Colorado, Santorum has jumped ahead of the presumptive nominee Mitt Romney in recent nationwide surveys while the former House speaker, who, just a month ago, appeared poised to challenge Romney as the more right wing candidate in the race, has been decimated in the polls.

Romney’s nationwide support has remained fairly steady at over 25 percent for months. Currently, just less than a third of the Republican electorate considers him the best candidate.

Gingrich, whose popularity peaked at over 30 percent after he won the primary election in South Carolina in early January, has seen his support plummet to between 10 and 15 percent. Santorum, by contrast, has doubled his support—clearly at the former speaker’s expense.

Texas congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian candidate, has polled around 12 percent since December. Few believe that he stands a chance of winning the race. His aim seems to be to accumulate delegates in order to influence the party platform at the nominating convention in August.

Just as Newt Gingrich’s sudden popularity in early January had less to do with the former House speaker than Republican primary voters’ lack of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney, Santorum’s surge could prove temporary once conservatives take a closer look at his record.

Romney is perceived as a moderate because he once favored abortion rights and implemented a health insurance scheme in Massachusetts when he was governor that resembles President Barack Obama’s health reform legislation. Gingrich, however, also once favored a mandate that forces people to buy health insurance; a measure which conservatives now oppose.

Both Gingrich and Romney expressed support for the unpopular 2008 bank bailout program but Santorum didn’t distance himself from the effort until he began to campaign for the presidential nomination either. He also favored pork barrel spending, or earmarks, as senator and voted to expand Medicare, the federal health support program for the elderly.

Santorum did champion welfare and Social Security reform and is a staunch social conservative—he strongly opposes abortion and legal recognition of gay partnerships—but is far from the ideal, small government conservative that the Republican base hungers for.

Indeed, he admitted as much in 2006 when he argued that most conservatives do not embrace the notion of personal autonomy. “Some do,” he said. “They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want.” According to Santorum, it is “not how traditional conservatives view the world” although this more libertarian view on what should be the role of government is gaining strength within the Tea Party and among Ron Paul supporters.

The Texas congressman likes to point out that he is the only one among the four Republican Party presidential contenders who draws young people to his cause. In both the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries last month, Paul won half of the youth vote.

It may be why Jim DeMint, a very socially conservative senator from South Carolina, cautioned his fellow Republicans against ignoring the Paul vote in the nominating contests. “If Republicans don’t figure out how to listen to and understand some of the things he’s saying,” he told Fox News in January, it could split the party.

Especially on issues of contraception and gay marriage, Santorum’s beliefs, inspired by his Catholic faith, do not align with the views of the majority of Americans, including young Americans who are drawn to the Ron Paul’s message of individual liberty and limited government.

The Santorum campaign knows this and tries to emphasize their candidate’s blue collar roots and industrial policy.

The Pennsylvania native, a traditional swing state with twenty electoral votes up for grabs, promises to reinvigorate American manufacturing with a tax regime that disproportionately favors factory labor. He rejects global warming as a leftist conspiracy and would allow energy companies to “drill everywhere” for oil and gas. This could prove popular in Rust Belt states like Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania where there are many unionized working class voters, sometimes known as a “Reagan Democrats,” who may be tempted to vote Republican, as they voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, if they perceive the Democratic candidate as an elitist and out of touch with their everyday struggles while the Republican speaks their language.

February 28 will be a test for Santorum’s strategy when primary voters in Michigan head for the polls. Mitt Romney was born there and his father was governor of the state in the 1960s when he also ran for president—unsuccessfully.

During the 2008 presidential primary, Romney won Michigan with 39 percent of the vote compared to Senator John McCain’s 30 percent. That was before Romney said to oppose public financial support for two of Detroit’s automakers however. Recent polls have him and Santorum tied in Michigan.

If Romney loses his home state, he would be hard pressed to maintain his frontrunner status while Santorum can claim that his message resonates beyond the evangelical base of the Republican Party and could endear Reagan Democrats to his election bid.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a Republican Party presidential hopeful, speaks in Denver, Colorado, February 6 (AP/Chris Carlson)

Called that one wrong, didn’t I? Rick Santorum actually swept all three Midwestern states that held presidential primary contests on Tuesday.

In Colorado, which four years ago was a Romney stronghold, Santorum had a 5 point lead over the former Massachusetts governor, 40 to 35 percent. The difference in actual votes was less than four thousand because turnout was dismal.

The main story is still Mitt Romney’s failure to enthuse conservatives. He wasn’t able to draw more people out to vote for him. Neither was Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker barely beat Ron Paul for third place in Colorado and received only 10 percent of the vote in Minnesota which is now Santorum country. The former Pennsylvania senator won almost 140,000 votes there, an outright majority. Romney finished a distant second at 25 percent.

Santorum’s win in Missouri is colored by Gingrich’s absence on the ballet and the state’s peculiar exercise in democracy last night which had no bearing on actual delegate selection. There will be a proper caucus March 17. Santorum’s victory in what was effectively an opinion poll or “beauty contest” does reinvigorate his campaign and enables him to position himself not just as the conservative alternate to Mitt Romney. As he told supporters in St. Charles last night, “I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

Expect Romney to go negative on Santorum now. That’s how he destroyed Gingrich in Florida. The question is, will Santorum do the same? He’s likely to see more donations to his campaign and the independent political action committee that supports it in the coming days but so far, the former senator has refrained from smearing his opponents. He has criticized both Gingrich and Romney for taking what he considers to be unconservative positions on climate change legislation and health insurance in the past but promised not to question the former House speaker’s lobbyist activities, as Romney has done, nor Romney’s career as a venture capitalist, as Gingrich has done.

The news media will also have a closer look at Santorum’s record and views now that he’s jumped to the fore so maybe team Romney won’t have to run too many negative advertisements to make voters wonder whether Santorum is as conservative as he says he is. He once defended congressional earmarks and “big government” programs if they promoted faith and family. That may resonate with evangelical voters but it’s not small government conservatism.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri, October 4, 2010 (Pixelmama)

Two states in the American West vote in the Republican Party’s presidential primary contest on Tuesday. Although many will be watching to see how well Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who hopes to position himself as the right wing alternative to the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, does, the third tier candidates in the race probably have a better chance of asserting their viability.

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum vie for very different constituencies but could boost their electoral prospects in the states of Colorado and Minnesota respectively.

After placing a disappointing third in Nevada’s caucuses over the weekend, Paul hopes that his message of limited government and a noninterventionist foreign policy will resonate with Colorado voters who tend to be more libertarian than Republican primary voters elsewhere.

The Colorado vote is closed to registered Republicans which is a disadvantage to the libertarian Texas congressman who appeals more to dissatisfied independent voters. Minnesota’s caucuses are open to non-Republicans but evangelics and social conservatives are in the majority there. Newt Gingrich carried their vote in South Carolina and northwestern Florida in January and had an almost 20 percentage point lead over Mitt Romney in the Midwestern state that same month.

Gingrich is flagging though which may be an opportunity for Rick Santorum to stage another victory. After winning in Iowa in early January, the former Pennsylvania senator has struggled to convince voters that he is the true conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. The frontrunner’s barrage of negative advertising against the former House speaker has significantly tarnished his right wing credentials however, perhaps sufficiently to give Santorum an opening to rebound.

Between them, Colorado and Minnesota wield seventy-six delegates and they are awarded proportionately. Even if Romney wins in both, the other contenders are able to accumulate delegates for the national convention in Tampa, Florida in August.

Gingrich and Paul have both vowed to stay in the race to the very end which raises the prospect of a brokered convention. If none of the presidential hopefuls manages to secure a majority of delegates before the convention, they could be unbound after several unsuccessful ballots and vote for someone who didn’t even participate in the primary contests.

There is also an election in Missouri but the outcome is officially meaningless. The state’s fifty-two delegates won’t be selected until March 17 when the state caucuses. Except for Santorum, the candidates haven’t given Missouri much attention for this reason. Gingrich isn’t even on the ballot. Still, if the state’s religious voters give him another win, even if it’s effectively an opinion poll, it would reinvigorate Santorum’s campaign which has thus far been little more than an afterthought in the primary race.