Interestingly, both Santorum’s concession speech and campaign website statement failed to even mention GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney. Santorum did not endorse either of Romney’s opponents — Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — either.
Both official and unofficial Ron Paul fan sites have also welcomed Santorum voters. “Dr. Paul is now the last — and real — conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” Ron Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said in a campaign website statement. Of course, Santorum’s record in Congress had a mixture of conservative and big government votes, including favoring the two largest entitlements (the prescription drug benefit of 2003 and 2001’s No Child Left Behind) during his congressional tenure.
Romney said in a website statement that Santorum will continue to play a high-profile role in the Republican Party. “Senator Santorum is an able and worthy competitor, and I congratulate him on the campaign he ran. He has proven himself to be an important voice in our party and in the nation. We both recognize that what is most important is putting the failures of the last three years behind us and setting America back on the path to prosperity.”
Santorum won 11 primaries and caucuses, and had won the second highest delegate totals according to most calculations. But Santorum noted on his campaign website that the upcoming winner-take-all primary in Texas — along with poor polling numbers — made continuing his nomination impractical. “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.”
Texas includes several expensive media markets, including Dallas, Houston, and Austin, and the Santorum campaign has fallen heavily in debt, a fact acknowledged in a fundraising appeal on Santorum’s campaign website: “I am planning to do everything in my power to bring a change about in the White House. But our campaign has debt, and I cannot be free to focus on helping defeat him with this burden. I am asking you to consider one more contribution.”
Photo of Rick Santorum: AP Images
