Newt-mentum

Headlines:

• After Recount, Santorum Wins Iowa
  
• Perry Drops Out, Endorses Gingrich
  
• Newt-mentum Surging in South Carolina
  

After the jump, the cold splash behind the headlines.

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Y'all realize, don't you, that the media is desperate to keep suspense alive? A GOP nomination decided in January means a black hole of winter political news the size of Newt's ego.

Or maybe it's the social conservatives, the tea party conservatives, the libertarian conservatives, all of the above, who are desperate to keep the campaign going, hoping against hope that somehow Mitt Romney can be stopped. Imagine the anguish when, after all the tea party successes in the 2010 elections, the 2012 race comes down to Obamacare vs Romneycare. You know the anyone-but-Romney faction is desperate when New Gingrich begins to look good to them. You know, the candidate everyone wrote off last summer when he called Congressional Republicans' plan to end Medicare "right-wing social engineering." You know, the guy whose second ex-wife says he wanted an open marriage? Newt Gingrich is the far right's last hope? Really?!?

Well, get ready to live with Mitt Romney. Gingrich might win the South Carolina primary, but he won't be the nominee. It turns out that the biggest careabout for the GOP electorate in 2012 is electability. And so the GOP turns to Mitt Romney, a candidate once found acceptable to that bluest of blue states, Massachusetts, and now suspected by most Republicans of being a secret supporter of all the things anathema to the far right. The GOP is getting hitched to Mitt Romney, desperately hoping that he's changed, that they can really believe what he says ... this time. Hoping he's changed. I can already see Sarah Palin two years from now, this time asking Republicans about President Mitt Romney, "How's that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?"