WASHINGTON POST Column: Two stories surfaced last week that amount to a loud vote of no confidence in Rick Santorum as the GOP nominee. ABC News reports that a top Republican senator wants a new choice if Santorum wins Michigan. Why? “ ‘He’d lose 35 states,’ the senator said, predicting the same fate for Newt Gingrich.”
This senator is not alone. Mike Allen reports:
A tippy-top Republican, unprompted, . . . sketched the germ of a plan for a new candidate if Rick Santorum upsets Mitt Romney in the Michigan primary on Feb. 28. Our friend brought visual aids: chicken-scratched versions of prosaic documents that are circulating among GOP insiders like nuclear-code sheets: In case of mayhem, break glass!…
Our friend handed us a printout of FEC deadlines for ballot access, with five of them circled and starred: California (March 23), Montana (March 12), New Jersey (April 2), New Mexico (March 16) and South Dakota (March 27). The point: Even after Feb. 28, it might be possible to assemble a Hail Mary candidacy that could garner enough delegates to force a CONTESTED convention (a different nuance than BROKERED, which implies that someone is in charge)… (more)
