BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Rick Santorum called it a day yesterday afternoon.

In one of those weird campaign events, Santorum’s folks tried to keep what the event was to be under wraps until about 2pm Eastern. But, the staff got buffaloed into giving up the fact that Santorum would be “suspending” his campaign so, by the time the event started at about 2:20, every person on the planet with a Twitter account was writing about it.

Santorum’s withdrawal from the campaign was a paradox: He had done too well to stay in any longer.

The Pennsylvania primary will be held on April 24. If Santorum were to win (not a foregone conclusion) he would have been locked into the race through May and probably through June.

This is April 10. Santorum is pretty much out of money. The notion of pretending to compete against Mitt Romney for the next 10 weeks was too much to contemplate.

If Santorum were to lose in Pennsylvania (also not a foregone conclusion) then his political career would end with a dull thud. Santorum had no good way to move on, so he got out.

Much has been made about the fact that Santorum didn’t mention Romney in his exit speech, but there is not a great deal of love between the two, so we should give Santorum a pass. Continue reading →