Rick Santorum ends presidential campaign

A week after fail­ing to defeat Mitt Rom­ney in Wis­con­sin’s Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry — por­trayed by the tra­di­tion­al media as a make-it or break-it moment for his can­di­da­cy — Rick San­to­rum announced at a press con­fer­ence in Get­tys­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia, that he was end­ing his pres­i­den­tial campaign.

He did not endorse Mitt Rom­ney, who now appears to be a lock for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion, nor did he indi­cate whether he would release del­e­gates already pledged to him. Instead, he kept his remarks focused on his grat­i­tude for his fam­i­ly and his sup­port­ers, who he cred­it­ed with help­ing keep his cam­paign alive.

In a mes­sage post­ed to his web­site, San­to­rum stuck to the same theme.

“Today I announced that I am sus­pend­ing my cam­paign for the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. This has been one of the hard­est deci­sions Karen and I have ever had to face togeth­er,” he wrote. “And it has been hard in large mea­sure because of you. I know that my can­di­da­cy has offered you a way to fight for your con­vic­tions, and I do not want to let you down.”

How­ev­er, San­to­rum did indi­cate (briefly) that his cam­paign team had recent­ly come to the con­clu­sion that Mitt Rom­ney’s del­e­gate lead was insurmountable.

“Our good friends in Texas have been work­ing non-stop to make sure that they have a say in the choice of our nom­i­nee, but with­out the state chang­ing its del­e­gate allo­ca­tion to win­ner-take-all, I do not see a path for­ward that does not risk our shared objec­tive of defeat­ing Barack Oba­ma in November.”

To be com­pet­i­tive with Rom­ney going for­ward, San­to­rum would have need­ed more than just a win in Penn­syl­va­nia and a win (plus a rules change) in Texas. He would have need­ed to find a way to con­vince vot­ers in regions of the coun­try where he has done pret­ty poor­ly to back his candidacy.

(Del­e­gate-rich states on the coasts like New York and Cal­i­for­nia have not yet weighed in and were expect­ed to be pro-Romney).

Iron­i­cal­ly, Rick San­to­rum’s oth­er rival, Newt Gin­grich, con­tin­ues to say that he is stay­ing in the race. Gin­grich has won just two states so far — his home state of Geor­gia and its north­ern neigh­bor, South Car­oli­na — but in oth­er states, he has effec­tive­ly helped pro­pel Mitt Rom­ney to vic­to­ry by split­ting the con­ser­v­a­tive vote.

Had Gin­grich left the race after New Hamp­shire, or even after Super Tues­day, San­to­rum might have been a posi­tion to keep going, at least for a while longer. San­to­rum prob­a­bly could have cap­tured South Car­oli­na and Geor­gia had Gin­grich called it quits in advance of those states’ primaries.

It’s also pos­si­ble San­to­rum could have won in Alas­ka, Michi­gan, Ohio, and Wis­con­sin had Gin­grich allowed he and Rom­ney to bat­tle it out alone.

Con­ser­v­a­tive activists react­ed to San­to­rum’s announce­ment with dis­may. On FreeRe­pub­lic, a pop­u­lar con­ser­v­a­tive mes­sage board, posters expressed strong anti-Rom­ney sen­ti­ment. Here’s a sam­pling of some of the comments.

I’ve seen 3 freep­ers who I have hard­ly seen in one minute post unite behind Rom­ney lets beat Obama

The Rom­ney bots have been wait­ing for some time to get on here and tell us to unite and they will use the usu­al crap of us hat­ing Oba­ma and we have to unite to beat him.

All of his paid staffers will be here soon you watch.

Oh well, time for me to start look­ing for a dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal par­ty. Still not vot­ing for Romney.

—  kre­itzer

I hope he does not endorse Romney.….

— sheikde­tail­feath­er

The Tea Party/Independents need to field a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date this fall because I hope the GOP/Romneyites lose this election.

— ups­driv­er

This par­tic­u­lar com­ment, left by a dis­grun­tled Gin­grich sup­port­er, was my favorite:

well… San­to­rum suc­ceed­ed in clear­ing the way for Mit­tens *sigh*

now that his job is done, time to quit.

I hope every­one that sup­port­ed San­to­rum is hap­py with the result!

If you had just got­ten behind Gin­grich, we could of had a REAL con­ser­v­a­tive as our nominee.

— TexasFreeper2009

Yeah, that’s right. If only con­ser­v­a­tive activists had coa­lesced around Newt Gin­grich — the epit­o­me of fam­i­ly val­ues — Mitt Rom­ney would be the one out of the race by now! You tell ’em, Texas Freep­er! Tell ’em how wrong they were!

San­to­rum’s rivals, of course, had a very dif­fer­ent reac­tion to the news. On Twit­ter, Mitt Rom­ney briefly salut­ed San­to­rum, say­ing, “Sen­a­tor San­to­rum is an able and wor­thy com­peti­tor, and I con­grat­u­late him on the cam­paign he ran.”

Mean­while, Ron Paul’s nation­al cam­paign chair­man, Jesse Ben­ton, released a brief state­ment urg­ing San­to­rum sup­port­ers to coa­lesce around Paul’s can­di­da­cy. “Con­grat­u­la­tions to Sen­a­tor San­to­rum on run­ning such a spir­it­ed cam­paign. Dr. Paul is now the last – and real – con­ser­v­a­tive alter­na­tive to Mitt Rom­ney. We plan to con­tin­ue run­ning hard, secure del­e­gates, and press the fight for lim­it­ed, con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment in Tam­pa,” said Benton.

Gin­grich also wast­ed no time in mak­ing a play for San­to­rum’s supporters.

“I am com­mit­ted to stay­ing in this race all the way to Tam­pa so that the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment has a real choice,” Gin­grich announced in a state­ment. “I humbly ask Sen­a­tor Santorum’s sup­port­ers to vis­it Newt dot org to review my con­ser­v­a­tive record and join us as we bring these val­ues to Tam­pa. We know well that only a con­ser­v­a­tive can pro­tect life, defend the Con­sti­tu­tion, restore jobs and growth and return to a bal­anced budget.”

Con­sid­er­ing that Paul has won no states and that Gin­grich has won only two, the like­li­hood of either of them being able to pre­vent Mitt Rom­ney from sewing up the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion in advance of the nation­al con­ven­tion in Tam­pa seems remote. They can con­tin­ue cam­paign­ing if they want.

Rom­ney, of course, won’t regard either of them as a seri­ous threat. Nei­ther will the tra­di­tion­al media, Belt­way pun­dits, or the Repub­li­can establishment.