Santorum's 'Show Me' Opportunity
February 3, 2012 | 10:42 AM
The good news for Rick Santorum: He finally gets his one-on-one matchup with Mitt Romney next week. The bad news: It doesn't count.
Tuesday's Republican primary in Missouri will feature only three candidates on the ballot who are still running for president -- Santorum, Romney and Ron Paul. Not appearing on the list is Newt Gingrich, whose campaign in the Show Me State failed to qualify him for the ballot.
His absence is boon to the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, who will have a chance to court conservative, anti-Romney voters without interference from a candidate with a similar ideological profile. The anti-Romney vote (a mixture of tea party conservatives and evangelicals) had been fractured among an array of candidates earlier in the race -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota each had their pockets of support from the group -- and by South Carolina it had become split between Santorum and former House Speaker Gingrich.
The dynamic hands Santorum a golden opportunity to prove that if left alone to battle Romney, he can defeat the GOP front-runner. If he does, he can argue that he, not Gingrich (who Romney crushed in Florida), is the conservative movement's best chance to knock off the former Massachusetts governor.
"I'm focused on this becoming a Santorum-Romney race," said John Brabender, Santorum's senior political adviser. "That's our pathway to victory, and we need to do that before Super Tuesday."
But there's a glaring problem. Even though Missouri's Republicans will take to the polls next week, their votes aren't official. To comply with Republican National Committee rules, the state decided to make the primary's results non-binding. Instead, its official race, a caucus, happens next month to determine who receives its delegates.
That leaves Santorum in a tricky position, forced to build potential momentum from a contest that effectively acts as a glorified opinion poll.
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