BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

There were election events last night in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.

Missouri was a primary, but it was a state-wide beauty contest. No delegates were at stake. I’m not certain why the state of Missouri thought it might be a good idea to have what was essentially a spring training election costing millions of dollars, but there you are.

Rick Santorum won the Missouri contest. Gingrich wasn’t organized enough to even get on the Missouri ballot. Colorado and Minnesota had caucuses – and we know how well those have gone so far – but there are 36 delegates in play in Colorado and 40 in Minnesota.

When the day began the delegate count was:
Mitt Romney – 100 , Newt Gingrich – 35 , Ron Paul – 15 , Rick Santorum – 11

A candidate needs 1,144 delegates to claim the nomination, so we have a way to go.

If I had been advising Romney (which I am not) I would have said, “Let’s let Santorum win Missouri. There are no delegates at stake, but he gets the bragging rights and can claim two wins in the first seven states. That means Gingrich has to deal with Santorum before he can deal with us. Thus, losing to Santorum in Missouri is a win.” Continue reading →