Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has announced that he is ending his bid for the Republican nomination. Despite some strong performances in states with more conservative voters, Santorum was unable to match Mitt Romney’s organizational and financial strength across the board. Romney also presented a message more strongly focused on rebuilding the economy. With Santorum out of the picture it now appears that the Republicans have their nominee in Mitt Romney.
Santorum held a press conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Tuesday afternoon to announce the end of his candidacy. He had previously pledged to continue his run through the Pennsylvania primary, but he had recently suffered in the polls and a loss in his home state seemed increasingly likely. Santorum found support in states with large evangelical Christian populations, but struggled to win in more moderate states–even when the momentum was seemingly in his favor. This led Mitt Romney to build up a nearly insurmountable lead in delegates despite his luke-warm reception from Republican voters.
In classic political fashion, Santorum suspended his campaign rather than terminating it, leaving him free to raise funds to retire any debt the campaign may have accrued. He also seemed to indicate that he wants to continue to remain an influential voice in his party’s political structure.
“We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we’ll suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting. We are going to continue to fight,” Santorum told supporters.
While Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul remain in the race, neither is a real factor. This means that Mitt Romney can now pivot to the general election and begin contrasting himself with President Obama rather than his Republican opponents. There will certainly be differences between Romney and President Obama on social issues, especially if social conservatives like Santorum push Romney to the right. The differences between the candidates on economic issues may seem stark at face value, but when you dig deeper Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are more like two sides of the same coin.
Romney may oppose the president’s proposal to raise taxes on the richest Americans, and he and President Obama disagree on the government bailout of the auto industry, but overall their policies are very similar. Despite unfounded claims that President Obama supports socialist policies, his administration has been incredibly friendly to Wall Street–a trend that President Mitt Romney would surely continue. Both Romney and Obama would surely cater to big business, especially in one of the most damaging ways: pursuing new free trade agreements. Mitt Romney is an unabashed supporter of free trade, and President Obama has demonstrated his commitment to these failed policies. A Romney candidacy may be more desirable than a Santorum candidacy, but it still sets up the general election as a battle of free trade supporters. This means the real conversation the country needs to be having will fall by the wayside and our economy will continue to suffer.
