Santorum rises

Well, I knew last night's primary/caucuses would not go well for Mitt Romney, but not this hellacious level of bad:

In Minnesota, a state which Mr. Romney carried easily in 2008, he has so far failed to win a single county — and got just 17 percent of the vote. That put him 27 points behind Rick Santorum, and 10 points behind Ron Paul, who finished in second.
 Missouri is a less important result since its beauty contest primary did not count for delegate selection and since turnout was understandably low there. But Mr. Romney lost all 114 counties in Missouri — and the state as a whole by 30 points, far more than polls projected.
 Then there was Colorado, a state that has reasonably similar demographics to Nevada, which Mr. Romney carried easily on Saturday. Colorado has somewhat fewer Mormon voters than Nevada, which hurts Mr. Romney — but it has somewhat more wealthy ones, which favors him. The betting market Intrade gave Mr. Romney about a 97 percent chance of winning Colorado entering the evening. But he lost the state by 5 points to Mr. Santorum.

I still think Romney is going to be the nominee. Caucuses are generally not a great indicator of which candidate an electorate may want. It's easier for voters to stop for a five minute visit to a voting booth rather than sitting for hours somewhere waiting to vote. Usually it's the hard-core party member who participates in the latter, and is therefore not a great sampling of the party as a whole. 
What is clear, however, is that the base isn't going to make it easy for Mittens:

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas. Instead, much of his support has come from the wealthy areas that Charles Murray calls Super ZIPs — few of which are in swing states in the general election.

Maybe Mitt's just not that into the Midwest: 

The most generous interpretation of Tuesday night’s results is that Mr. Romney’s campaign failed to make much of an effort in the contests. He did not make many personal appearances in the states, nor did he run a significant amount of advertising. And his campaign worked to diminish expectations in the day or two before the voting — a practice that can annoy voters who are undecided in the race if they feel like they are being told their vote doesn’t matter.

What is clear is that this is far from over. Santorum is now the superstar anti-Romney candidate for the next two weeks until the next primary. It's gonna be fun to see the lengths Newt Gingrich is willing to go to get the spotlight back on his candidacy. I'm thinking he's feeling a bit desperate right about now.