The New York Times has created nice, clear graphics, for what they're worth, showing the Santorum wins/Romney losses and what issues propelled the winner to victory in Alabama and Mississippi. Unless I'm reading them the wrong way, these graphics show that the "Beat Obama" voters were few compared to the "True" and "Very" conservative voters, and the candidate who lost -- Romney -- was got the anti-Obama votes.
Alabama comes out looking like America's most nut-job state. Mississippi looks a lot better. Bill Maher lost a lot of points for me when he showed that Alexandra Pelosi mini-documentary on the people of those states last week. Honestly, if you want to see naked racism and classism, take a look at that insulting, damaging series of images.
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Onward to Illinois.
...With former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) unable to win either state in his home region, Santorum clearly earned the opportunity to try to consolidate the party’s conservative base, which has been resistant to Romney’s candidacy. The former senator from Pennsylvania must now convince Republicans in other regions that his brand of conservatism would make him a stronger nominee against Obama.
Santorum will have three chances in the next week to demonstrate that he can win that argument and that he can defeat Romney. The most important will take place on Tuesday in Illinois. The primary there could become a rerun of the battles Romney and Santorum waged in Michigan and Ohio. Santorum fell just short in both. That makes Illinois pivotal to his hopes of overtaking his main rival. ...Dan Balz, WaPo
The question becomes whether Santorum can win over Newt Gingrich's supporters -- and, of course, whether Newt will finally get out of the way.
... No matter what Gingrich does, the numbers from the exit polls in Alabama and Mississippi are a striking sign that Santorum is rapidly emerging as the preferred conservative choice.
Among those who said a candidate’s conservative credentials were the most important attribute in making their choice, 51 percent of Alabamians went for Santorum while just 34 percent voted for Gingrich. In Mississippi, it was 53 percent for Santorum to 34 percent for Gingrich. Roughly one in four Alabama voters said a “strong moral character” was the most important candidate attribute; Santorum took 61 percent to just 7 percent for Gingrich among that bloc.
For all intents and purposes then, the Republican race has narrowed to a two-man race with Illinois, which votes on March 20, looming as the next huge test for both Santorum and Romney.
Polling released over the weekend in Illinois shows Romney with the narrowest of leads over Santorum ... ChrisCillizza, WaPo
As Cillizza writes, it's already impossible for Romney to claim his "inevitability" as Republican party nominee.
Newt said last night he's not going away anytime soon.
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Is Romney "inevitable" in Illinois?
So what do we know about Illinois? There are 69 delegates at stake – fifteen of which are unbound and fifty-four of which are bound.
Polling is scant. Last week, the Chicago Tribune released a survey showing Mitt Romney winning 35 percent of the vote, Santorum was second with 31 percent, and Newt Gingrich had 12 percent. Unfortunately, that’s the only meaningful poll of the state in the past five months.
The Tribune’s survey suggests an enormously fluid race with 46 percent of likely voters saying they could change their minds before next Tuesday’s contest. ...The Hill
