Rick Santorum won Tuesday's Alabama and Mississippi GOP presidential primaries, with Southern conservatives again rejecting Mitt Romney, who earlier in the day said Santorum's campaign was reaching a "desperate end."
Newt Gingrich, who had staked his campaign on a Southern strategy after winning South Carolina and Georgia, was fighting with Romney for second place in both contests and pitched that as part of his reason to continue campaigning through the GOP convention.
In Alabama, Santorum won 35% of the vote. Gingrich and Romney both had 29% – although Gingrich was about 2,000 votes ahead with 99% of the vote counted – and Ron Paul had 5%.
With 99% of the vote counted in Mississippi, Santorum had 33%. Gingrich was at 31%, Romney at 30% and Paul at 4%. Results of caucuses in Hawaii and American Samoa had yet to be reported.
"We did it again," Santorum told supporters Tuesday night in Lafayette, Louisiana, which will hold a GOP primary on March 24.
Santorum, whose Alabama and Mississippi victories give him 10 wins to Romney's 16, poked at the frontrunner as he reiterated his stance that he is the viable conservative alternative to the former Massachusetts governor.
"People (said), 'You're being outspent (by Romney),' and everybody's talking about all the (delegate) math, and that his race is inevitable. Well, for someone who thinks this race is inevitable, (Romney) has spent a whole lot of money against me for being inevitable," Santorum told supporters.
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Is Rick Santorum against college education for everyone because students reduce the unemployment figure? Or because he senses that smart people won't vote for him? Or does he think home-schooling is the only way?
Very good questions! I guess all of the above!
Well of course Rick is going to get the Southern vote. Nothing but religious fanatics there.
Good Point! And when he won Tennessee I knew he was going to win the rest of the Jim Crow south like Mississippi and Alabama! The more you display bigotry and hate on the campaign trail, the more the offspring of the confederacy come running to throw their support! And if Mitt had to rely on the south, Santurum would win the nomination easily. But not the Presidency! Obama/Biden 2012!
These "religious fanatics" as you call them are also known as something else . . . Americans. If the members of your party, like you, so obviously hold your fellow Americans in such disdain that you are disgusted by them to the point of calling them names, perhaps you should stop trying to run their government.
tee-hee-hee...that goodforyah...y'all had no bizzness teasing and BULLYING that man...about his surname!
@mmmmm: we'll find other stuff to tease him about.. give us time, we just met him..
All the talk about religion, I just wonder when Rick Santurum is going to show his birth certificate!!!
I find it disturbing that there are people who embrace Santorums rhetoric! I just hope not enough to vote him into office! Why does he want to be president anyway? He's much better suited for pastor of a megachurch! I'm sure he has some unrealistic fantasy of "turning the nation around, to God"! Only problem is, which religion will we pick as state religion, will we be allowed to participate in the "picking process", where will we send those who don't want to convert!? So many questions, so little time! Obama/Biden next4!!
What an uninspiring dog primary?! Its such a contrast with the 2008 democratic primary.