Santorum picks up two wins

WASHINGTON - A resurgent Rick Santorum won Minnesota's Republican caucuses with ease Tuesday, relegating front-runner Mitt Romney to a distant third-place finish that raised fresh questions about his ability to attract ardent conservatives at the core of the GOP political base.

Santorum was victorious, as well, in a nonbinding Missouri primary that was worth bragging rights but no delegates.

Colorado held caucuses, too, with Santorum leading Romney in early returns.

A jubilant Santorum declared to cheering supporters in St. Joseph, Mo.: "Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota!"

Santorum's twin victories are his first since his narrow win in Iowa's leadoff caucuses in January.

The 70 delegates at stake in Minnesota (37) and Colorado (33) were the biggest one-day total so far in the GOP race to name an opponent for President Obama.

Tuesday's caucuses were the first step of a multistep process to determine Minnesota's delegates. An Associated Press analysis showed Santorum would win all the statewide delegates if he maintains the same level of support throughout the process.

Missouri's delegates will be chosen beginning in caucuses expected to draw far more competition from Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul next month.

Romney won in Minnesota and Colorado in 2008, the first time he ran for the nomination, but the GOP has become more conservative in both states since then under the influence of tea party activists.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, campaigned aggressively in all three states, seeking a breakthrough to revitalize a campaign that has struggled since his narrow first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses a month ago.

In Missouri on Tuesday night, Santorum said his wins were "a victory for the voices of our party." Romney, he said, "would not be the best person to . . . fight for the voices of freedom in America."

And to Obama, he said, "You'd better start listening to the voice of the people."

"Why would you think he would be listening now?" he said of the president. "He thinks he's smarter than you."

Addressing supporters late Tuesday in Denver, Romney offered congratulations to Santorum but said, "We'll keep campaigning down the road, but I expect to become the nominee with your help."

"When this primary season is over, we're going to stand united as a party behind our nominee to defeat Barack Obama," Romney said.

"This is a moment in time when our country is crying out for change and reform," he said. ". . . This is not a moment when we can continue to do business as usual."

Romney began the day the leader in the delegate chase, with 101 of the 1,144 needed to capture the nomination at the Republican National Convention this summer in Tampa, Fla. Gingrich had 32, Santorum 17, and Paul nine.

If the night was good for Santorum, it was grim for Gingrich, who made scant effort in Minnesota or Colorado. He ran far off the pace in both caucus states, forced to watch from the sidelines while Santorum boasted of being the candidate with conservative appeal.

The campaigning was a pale comparison with the Iowa caucuses or primaries last month in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida.

Television advertising was sparse; neither Colorado nor Minnesota hosted a candidates' debate, and there was relatively little campaigning by the contenders themselves until the last few days.

The same was true in last weekend's Nevada caucuses, which Romney won on the heels of a Florida primary victory days earlier. The same pattern holds in Maine, where caucuses finish on Saturday.

Primaries in Michigan and Arizona on Feb. 28 are shaping up to reflect the intensity that characterized the first few weeks of the year.

The campaign will hit fever pitch with a 10-state Super Tuesday on March 6, with 416 convention delegates at stake. Georgia, where Gingrich launched his career in Congress, is the biggest prize that night with 76 delegates. Next is Ohio, which has 63 delegates at stake and where early voting has begun.

Santorum campaigned more aggressively this week than any of the other contenders, and he spent the day hopscotching from Colorado to Minnesota to Missouri.

In the hours before the caucuses convened, Romney sought to lower expectations.

"Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest," Rich Beeson, the campaign's political director, wrote in a memo for public consumption.

"John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents will notch a few wins, too," Beeson wrote. McCain, the Arizona senator, won the Republican nomination four years ago.

In fact, Colorado and Minnesota were among the states that McCain failed to win, and he lost them to Romney.

In the four years since, the GOP has become more conservative in both. That posed a challenge for Romney, who runs as the Republican most likely to defeat Obama and is still trying to establish his credentials among tea party activists suspicious of a onetime moderate who backed abortion rights.

Two years ago in Minnesota, establishment candidates for governor were swept aside in the primary, and tea party-backed insurgents for governor and the Senate in Colorado won the party nominations.

In all three cases, Democrats won in the general election that fall.

Here is the percentage of the vote each GOP candidate won Tuesday.

Missouri primary

Candidate % of Vote

Rick Santorum 55

Mitt Romney 25

Ron Paul 12

99% of returns counted; Newt Gingrich did not qualify to be on the ballot.

Minnesota caucuses

Candidate % of Vote

Rick Santorum 45

Ron Paul 27

Mitt Romney 17

Newt Gingrich 11

74% of returns counted

Colorado caucuses

Candidate % of Vote

Rick Santorum 43

Mitt Romney 29

Newt Gingrich 15

Ron Paul 12

32% of returns counted

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