Rickrolled

I was going to write about the Chrysler/Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad that won re-election for President Obama. Instead I'm going to write about the giant rickroll the Romney campaign just experienced. Last night Rick "Man-on-dog, dead-baby-cuddler, anti-blah-people" Santorum won all three Republican  primary events in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado.

And he won them quite handily with 55% of the vote in Missouri, 45% in Minnesota and 40% in Colorado. Those are pretty big numbers in a 4-way race (don't forget Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are still in this thing). Couple that with the fact that Ricky actually won Iowa as well and it means he has won half of the contests so far.

What does this all mean? Well, not much really, but maybe a lot.  You see, these little contests are a bit misleading, their purpose is not to actually elect the Republican presidential nominee but to determine the makeup of the delegates who will go to the Republican National Convention in late August to nominate the Republican presidential candidate. And every state does it differently with varying degrees of importance to the overall nomination. For example, as the Romney campaign will undoubtedly point out often over the next few days, the Missouri primary meant absolutely nothing, no delegates were assigned in any way. And Romney is still easily winning the delegate count with more than half of the currently assigned delegates.

But, he also has less than 10% of the delegates required for the nomination, meaning this race is still very much up in the air. And therein lies the problem, in poll after poll Republican voters have shown that they would kinda like someone other than Romney. First it was Michele Bachmann, then it was Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, then Newt Gingrich. Now it's Rick's turn. It's unlikely that he can translate his audition as the not-Romney candidate into anything substantial just as the others couldn't but yesterday certainly takes the wind out of Romney's sails.

Because the longer this internal Republican slugfest goes on the more difficult it will be for Romney to pivot into the general election. And the longer his Republican opponents attack him, the longer President Obama can grow his campaign coffer and hope for the economy to continue improving. So hang in there Ricky, Newt and crazy old coot, Ron Paul. You all are fighting a losing battle, Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. But I like to see the contest, it makes me giggle.