Image: The Tea Party Tribune

 

 

BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN, BLAKE HANSON, ZACH TOOMBS, BREANA JONES

 

 

No knock-out punches on Super Tuesday.

 

Romney scored big wins on the east coast and in Idaho, while Santorum played well in the Midwest. But everyone was watching Ohio. It was a squeaker — but Romney squeezed out a victory.

 

“This has been as close as it could possibly be over the course of most of tonight.”

 

Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, picked up only his home state of Georgia. But The Huffington Post’s Elise Foley says — don’t expect Gingrich to drop out.

 

“[S]ome conservatives are eager for the former House speaker to step aside, hoping his supporters would instead coalesce around Santorum. Tuesday showed that’s not going to happen soon.”

 

And while Super Tuesday added a good number of delegates to Romney’s mantle — he’s no where near having this thing in the bag. As NBC’s Domenico Montaro puts it,

 

“If all about delegates, we're going to be counting in at least mid-May.”

 

That’s because a candidate needs 1,144 delegates to earn the nomination. Romney’s got more than any of his competitors — but he’s still far less than halfway there. On Fox News — former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and former Romney competitor Rick Perry suggest — that makes Romney a weak front-runner.

 

PALIN: “...if he is going to be the nominee, he and his team have to figure out how to get people enthused about this. … Not being a strong front-runner ... he has to work hard at drumming up the enthusiasm.”

PERRY: “...the fact is that no one won everything they needed to win, which I think is a reflection of the Republican primary voter not settling in. Mitt not being able to close the South with the southern states.”

 

Not to mention — says conservative blog HotAir — Romney’s got a problem with more conservative states.

 

“I can give him a pass on Georgia because it’s Newt’s home state but Tennessee would have been a huge narrative-builder for Romney as proof that he can win in the south. (The real south, not Florida.) As it is, it’s just one reminder after another that deep red states don’t trust him.”

 

Then again — CNN contributor Hilary Rosen says — don’t underestimate Romney.

 

ROSEN: “Intuitively he doesn't seem to have the smoothness of a political candidate. But he’s got a good organization, he’s got a lot of heat behind it and this is gonna be a very tough election.”