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Steve Benen: …. The Romney camp will very likely spin the results as a momentary setback, little more than a speed bump on the road to Tampa. That may even prove to be true. But given Santorum’s clean sweep yesterday, Romney will now be forced to confront something he’d desperately hoped to avoid: doubt.
Romney’s been able to convince party officials and activists to overlook his weaknesses as a candidate – his flip-flops, his layoff-driven riches, his out-of-touch gaffes – because he was their inevitable nominee. But after Santorum’s hat trick, Republicans are likely to pause and consider just how strong a candidate Romney really is. Those aren’t the kind of questions the former governor wanted to hear at this stage in the process, and he may not like the answers.
The road to the GOP nomination just got a little longer.
Full post here
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Greg Sargent: They don’t like him. They really don’t like him.
…. The loss of Colorado, which should have been a lock for Romney, is particularly interesting: The state will be key in the general election…
…. I continue to wonder whether Romney’s weaknesses as a general election candidate have been papered over by the far more glaring weaknesses of his rivals. Republicans may look at yesterday’s results and see that paper peeling back a bit.
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Kevin Drum: President Obama has publicly condemned the Citizens United decision and has publicly opposed the role of Super PACs in campaign finance. Recently, though, he signed off on a plan to actively support Priorities USA Action….
Is this hypocritical of Obama? For the thousandth time, no, no, no. The playing field is the playing field, and once a public policy has been legally put in place you’d be a sap not to play by the same rules as everyone else….
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Charles Pierce: Yesterday on the blog, we discussed the appearance on my man Chuck Todd’s Daily Rundown program of a certain George Weigel, alleged Catholic public intellectual and full-time fluffer of the Clan of The Red Beanie.
…. In arguing for the existence of some mythical “Catholic backlash” to the Obama administration’s decision to require that contraception be included in any health plans sanctioned under the Affordable Care Act, Weigel said the following:
“This has struck a tribal nerve in Catholicism. The Catholic Church has been beaten up over the last 10 or 11 years and I think Catholics are tired of the government and others beating up on the church.”
Holy mother of god, to coin a phrase …. The Church has been “beaten up” over the last 10 or 12 years because, at its highest possible echelons, it functioned as an international conspiracy to obstruct justice regarding the crime of sexual assault … Most Catholics I know don’t believe the Church has taken a beating over the last decade; in fact, they believe a lot of ermined layabouts haven’t gotten half of what they deserve.
More here
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