Why hasn’t conservative GOPer former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum — the strongest anti-Romney, who seemed poised to possibly get the nomination until he couldn’t stop talking and undermined his own surge — endorsed presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney yet? There had even been some (highly) speculative reports that there could be ticket with Santorum and the former Massachusetts Governor — a ticket most analysts now consider a virtual impossibility.
The Week has an excellent roundup looking at the four top reasons. It starts out:
Rick Santorum promises he’ll be “all in” as Republicans try to deny President Obama a second term in November, yet 10 days after suspending his own campaign, Santorum still hasn’t endorsed the party’s presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney. The former rivals are planning to meet in Philadelphia, possibly in the next two weeks, and Santorum strategist John Brabender says Romney has made it clear he’d like to talk about getting Santorum’s endorsement. They’ll have to mend fences — a Santorum fundraising mailer that was arranged before he dropped out but only landed in Iowa mailboxes this week said that nominating a “Massachusetts Moderate” like Romney “truly frightens me.” What does Santorum gain by playing hard to get? Here are four things he might hope to achieve:
Go the link to read the reasons.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.