Tuesday night’s primary victories by Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum mean an extended nominating fight, and that’s a good thing, says influential conservative commentator William Kristol, editor of
The Weekly Standard.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, last night was a good night for Republican prospects to defeat Barack Obama,” he wrote in the magazine. “The point, after all, isn't to end the primary campaign early. It's to end the Obama presidency in November.”
Kristol noted Mitt Romney’s comments yesterday that Santorum is “at the desperate end of his campaign.” Kristol’s reaction: “Oops.” If anyone is desperate it’s Romney — to end the campaign, he says.
“The Republican primary electorate has been resisting this, and the voters in Alabama and Mississippi engaged in massive resistance yesterday, giving Romney less than a third of their votes,” Kristol wrote
If Newt Gingrich ends his campaign, Republicans will have the two-man race that many want, Kristol says. “As the examples of Ford-Reagan in 1976 and Obama-Clinton in 2008 suggest, the victor in such a contest tends to seem by its conclusion a worthy winner, and is able to run a strong general election campaign coming out of the convention,” he wrote.
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