Santorum, Having Played Dirty All Week, Loses Michigan And Arizona

Rick Santorum, the self-proclaimed “true conservative,” has just lost the Michigan Republican primary, to former front-runner Mitt Romney. Romney won his home state by a projected 41.4% to 37.5%. A Santorum Michigan win would have been a dirty one. He admitted to robo-calling Democratic voters in the Michigan open primary, with exit polls affirming that nine to ten percentage points of Santorum’s vote consists of Democratic voters intentionally skewing the results, Democrats who would probably not vote for a Republican in the general election. Santorum benefitted from a DailyKos attempt to skew the vote by having Democrats vote for Santorum in an effort to draw out the Republican 2012 primary.

Mitt Romney is the expected and projected winner in Arizona also.

In an ironic twist, Santorum, who talks about his Roman Catholic faith almost as often as he breathes, lost the Catholic vote in both Michigan and Arizona, according to exit polls.

Rick Santorum spent the past week also railing against Democratic icons, from Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy, even claiming repeatedly that the latter’s views — shared by a full two-thirds of all Americans — on separation of church and state “makes me throw up,” and claiming the former was a “snob” for wanting all Americans to go to college.

But Santorum was wrong on both issues, twisting, turning, and lying about the on-the-record statements of both JFK and President Obama.

Despite the Republicans’ obsessive focus on social issues, like same-sex marriage, abortion, contraception and other womens’ health issues, voters in exit polls in Arizona stated the economy was their top issue, according to the New York Times:

As was the case in every previous exit poll conducted in this nomination race, voters in the Arizona Republican primary overwhelmingly picked the economy as their No. 1 issue in deciding whom to support (about half of all responses). The second biggest issue cited by voters was the budget deficit (about one-third of responses). The economy was the top issue concern for supporters of Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich, but supporters of Ron Paul felt that the budget deficit was more important.

During much of the evening, Romney and Santorum were almost perfectly evenly tied, and with once polls officially closed, only several hundred votes separated the two.

MSNBC reporter Domenico Montanaro noted, via Twitter, “Catholics made up 30% of voters in Michigan GOP primary; And ROMNEY wins them 43%-37% over Santorum, the staunch conservative Catholic,” and added, “Evangelicals/born-again Christians (42% of total) in Michigan voted for Santorum 50%-32% over Romney.”

 

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Related:

Watch: Santorum Says Obama’s Faith, Church Merely An “Avenue For Power”

Santorum: Democratic Party An Orgy Of Sex And Homosexuality Preying On Lust

Watch: This Is What Makes Rick Santorum “Throw Up”