Griper Blade: Rick Santorum Elected Mayor of Ghost Town

There are two ways to look at Rick Santorum's winning streak last night and both of them are mostly correct. The first take is that the results were mathematically meaningless. His rivals are very busy making that point today. The winner of none of the contests last night is guaranteed delegates at the convention. Colorado and Minnesota are nonbinding straw polls by tradition and Missouri's primary will award no delegates because of the incompetence of that state's party. In this take, Rick Santorum is the triumphant winner of a big pile of nothing. In delegate math, it's an excuse to drop confetti on a candidate and nothing more.

The other take is that this is hugely important. Not surprisingly, Team Santorum's taking this line, along with many in the media. Polls influence polls and this is just as true of election results. Choosing a candidate a rational decision-making process (in the best case) and when polls start moving one way, you begin to rethink your position, in much the same way that you might take all your friends' advice. When everyone has a different opinion from your own, it's not unreasonable to rethink your position -- or change it. Santorum's big win last night will have the "polls influence polls" effect and he'll become the latest legit Not-Romney (sorry Newt). Rick wins zero delegates and all of the positive headlines. In all, I'd say he got the best deal last night. Easily and by a long shot.

But missing in all the analysis is that familiar GOP trend -- low turnout. Turnout in last night's races was anemic, bordering on pathetic. Low turnout isn't surprising for what are essentially beauty contests of no real electoral value, but there's low and then there's low...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]