On Tuesday, Mitt Romney finally earned a title he has craved since he became the governor of Massachusetts nine years ago: that of the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president.
Rick Santorum's effective withdrawal from the primary brings to an end one of the most confusing, frustrating, and truly embarrassing moments in our nation's political history.
Santorum, for his part, barely even admitted he had lost anything in the concession speech he gave from Gettysburg, Penn.
"Over and over again we were told, 'Forget it, you can't win,'" the former senator said Tuesday as he quit the race from his home state. "We were winning, but in a different way."
In addition to avoiding discussion of his loss, Santorum also declined to endorse Mitt Romney--indeed, he did not even once mention the name of the man he was actually conceding to.
Technically, Santorum only suspended his campaign, allowing him to hold onto his delegates along with some level of party and convention influence.
Nonetheless, with the right-wing former senator no longer challenging Romney for the nomination, Gingrich having already massively scaled back his campaign, and Paul in an effective political truce with the slick-haired businessman from Massachusetts, the former governor looks to have this deal just about wrapped up.
Santorum did not have to make himself look so terrible in the process, though. His wild turn on women's issues and contraception, among other things--anyone remember that really strange, random criticism of John F. Kennedy?--toward the end of this campaign heavily lowers his odds to be picked in the already-begun Romney search for a vice presidential candidate. He may not even get a speaking slot at the convention if he keeps it up.
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Perhaps Santorum is aiming even higher. Many have pondered whether Santorum already has 2016 on the brain, given the Republican Party's tradition of giving the last primary's runner-up first dibs at the frontrunner spot four years later.
The thinking goes like this: if Romney loses to Obama, Santorum will be able to run again four years from now with enhanced name recognition and party gravitas--much as Romney did in 2012 after his failed 2008 campaign.
Furthermore, a Romney loss to Obama in the general election this November would give Santorum a huge dose of "I told you so" credibility with both his party and his party's voters four years from now.
"I told you all we needed a true conservative to win the election," he will be able to say. "We nominated a more moderate candidate in 2012, and it didn't work. In 2016, let's try it my way."
2016 may have been on Santorum's mind much further back than any of us realize. Santorum is not a bad politician; he had to have realized quite early on in this race he stood no chance of winning, at least this time around.
His poll numbers sat at 1-2% for almost an entire year, until three weeks before Iowa, when Herman Cain suspended his campaign.
That midwestern state's heavily evangelical Republican primary voters quickly realized that Santorum was the only non-Gingrich conservative alternative to Romney that was left. Iowa went for Santorum after a vote-count debacle that first called it a tie, then declared Romney the winner, then finally, officially called it for Santorum.
And although the media painted the Romney-Santorum race as a close call all the way from Iowa in early January through until the very end of March, Santorum was really just the last in a long line of wannabe anti-Romneys that goes back to Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich, all of whom stood exactly the same zero percent chance of beating this year's establishment candidate.
Each challenger spent their month or two of 2011 in the limelight, having his or her debate sound bites quoted ad nauseum on cable news channels who were desperate to create a narrative out of the most boring presidential primary since the induction of television as a mass political medium.
The fact is that despite Romney's major weaknesses as a frontrunner, each of his opponents were thoroughly compromised, in one way or another.
If past sexual indiscretions (Cain) or inability to speak fluent English (Perry) did not do in the other candidates' chances for nomination, then they were simply buried by the sheer size of Romney's eight- and nine-figure campaign funds.
But out of all of them, Santorum in particular was known as the most convicted and crazy-eyed, besides perhaps Michele Bachmann. His most famous political statement before the 2012 campaign involved the words "man-on-dog" in response to a question about sexual intercourse and homosexuality.
And if a multi-multi-millionaire investment manager and evangelical Christian named Foster Friess had not been pumping the Santorum campaign full of cash in advance of every contest, the former senator probably would not have lasted this long in the first place. This is the new Citizens United world we live in, folks.
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Santorum's loss on March 20 in the primary in Illinois led many to believe he would quit the race before the month was out. The state was seen as a crucial indicator of whether or not the former senator could win a non-southern state west of the Mississippi River.
Romney had already bested him Santorum in the crucial Rust Belt states of Michigan (Feb. 28) and Ohio (March 6). The Illinois loss led many in the media to argue that the Santorum surge that had peaked on Feb. 7 with his triple win in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado had finally begun to blow over.
Furthermore, with Illinois capping a trio of losses by Santorum to Romney in major midwestern states, the former's narrative of Romney's electoral weakness in the American heartland began to lose credibility.
Perception soon became reality. Santorum began behaving as if he believed the new media narrative of his decline, too.
On March 26, Santorum blew up at a New York Times reporter who did little more than quote back to him Santorum's own statement that Mitt Romney was the "worst Republican in the country."
"It's bullshit!" Santorum shouted in response, poking his finger in the face of reporter Jeff Zeleny, who seemed more disturbed by Santorum's eyes popping out of his head in pure rage than by any words coming out of the former senator's mouth.
Things only got worse from there for the former Pennsylvania senator.
The April 3 primaries in Maryland, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. were supposed to be a "reboot" of the race, in Santorum's words.
Romney would clearly win Maryland and D.C., but Wisconsin was the night's true delegate prize, and Santorum crisscrossed the Badger State waging full-on, Bush-against-Kerry-style class warfare on Romney for weeks leading up to the primary.
After Illinois, Santorum was running on his fourth chance to prove his muscle with key constituencies in the Rust Belt, traditionally the key geographical swing area of the country in presidential elections.
As results came in on April 3, Maryland and D.C. were quickly declared for Romney. But when results from Wisconsin--an hour behind the other primaries--began to roll in, Santorum came out to speak before even half of the vote had been tallied, a traditional sign that a candidate foresees a loss, and would rather not have to give a real concession speech.
After a brief statement about fighting on, Santorum left his campaign headquarters just minutes before Wisconsin was called for Mitt Romney, 44-37%. It was the last primary he will actively compete in against Mitt Romney.
About the author: Ian MacIsaac is a staff writer for the Capital City Free Press. He is a history major at Auburn University Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama and former co-editor of the school newspaper, the AUMnibus.
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