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Santorum's Trifecta

By Jack Palmer
Feb 8, 2012
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It was an eventful night in the GOP primary race last night, with some surprises in the results.

See the best of the reaction to what happened right here:

In The New York Times, Rick Santorum’s trifecta of victories was called “another twist to an unruly nominating contest that has seen Republican voter veering among candidates and refusing to coalesce behind anyone.”

Former Senator Santorum’s victory has been put down to the voting preferences of “evangelicals and Tea Party adherents”, who make up a significant percentage of the electorate in all three states. One pundit noted that when it comes to voting:

“evangelicals, they get out. Cold, wind, rain or snow, they get out.”

ABC News asks whether the surprise results are (yet another) game changing moment in the race for the GOP Presidential nomination, with three separate challengers – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – all having won at least one primary/caucus.

Writing in the Israel's Haaretz newspaper, columnist Chemi Salev compared Santorum's shocking (for most of the news media, at least) political trifecta to the so-called "Yom Kippur of the pollsters" following pundits' failure to predict Binyamin Netanyahu’s election victory over Shimon Peres in 1996.

While over at the Economist, the "Lexington" blog says Santorum's wins yesterday don't pose a real challenge to Mitt Romney. "Still Mitt by a Mile," the blog headline said. "To my mind, he still has the nomination in the bag."

Before the polls had closed, Rick Santorum laid out his position on climate change, telling a gathering in Colorado on Monday that it is “an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life.”

Jack Palmer is a communications assistant at Sojourners. Follow Jack on Twitter @JackPalmer88.

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