GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Bowing to the inevitable after an
improbably resilient run for the White House, Rick Santorum quit
the presidential race on Tuesday, clearing the way for Mitt Romney
to claim the Republican nomination.
"We made a decision over the weekend, that while this
presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our
campaign today, we are not done fighting," he said.
Santorum, appearing with his family, told supporters that the
battle to defeat President Barack Obama would go on but he
pointedly made no mention or endorsement of Romney, whom he had
derided as an unworthy standard-bearer for the GOP.
The former Pennsylvania senator stressed that he'd taken his
presidential bid farther than anyone expected, calling his campaign
"as improbable as any race that you will ever see for president."
"Against all odds," he said, "we won 11 states, millions of
voters, millions of votes."
Santorum signaled his intention of maintaining a voice in the
campaign to come, saying: "This game is a long, long, long way
from over. We will continue to go out and fight and defeat
President Barack Obama."
Santorum spoke with Romney before the announcement, a Republican
source close to the campaign said, and Romney asked to meet him
sometime in the future
The delegate totals told the tale of Santorum's demise. Romney
has more than twice as many delegates as Santorum and is on pace to
reach the 1,144 needed to clinch the nomination by early June.
Still in the race, but not considered a factor: former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Santorum had hoped to keep his campaign going through the
Pennsylvania primary on April 24, but decided to fold after his
severely ill 3-year-old daughter, Bella, spent the weekend in the
hospital.
Santorum, a feisty campaigner who took everyone by surprise with
his win in Iowa's leadoff caucuses, ran on his conservative
credentials and his experience in Congress - he was a House member
for four years and senator for 12 - but was hobbled by a lack of
money and organization.
He said that while Romney was accumulating more delegates, "we
were winning in a very different way. We were touching hearts"
with a conservative message.
In a statement, Romney called Santorum "an able and worthy
competitor" and congratulated him on his campaign.
"He has proven himself to be an important voice in our party
and in the nation," Romney said. "We both recognize that what is
most important is putting the failures of the last three years
behind us and setting America back on the path to prosperity."
Santorum said the campaign had been "a love affair for me,
going from state to state. ... We were raising issues, frankly,
that a lot of people did not want raised."
He spoke almost nostalgically of the race, and of his trademark
sweater vest, a pointed visual contrast to his suited rivals.
"Over and over again we were told, `Forget it. You can't
win,"' he said.
Eventually, the improbable had to bow to reality: Santorum would
have needed 80 percent of the remaining delegates to win the
nomination before the party's national convention in Florida in
August. And that couldn't happen as long as Romney was in the race
because most upcoming primaries use some type of proportional
system to award delegates, making it hard to win large numbers of
delegates in individual states.
In most states, Santorum's delegates can now support any
candidate they choose.
Gingrich, who has been splitting the votes of those who
questioned Romney's conservative credentials with Santorum, made an
immediate play for his supporters.
He said the former senator's campaign was "a testament to his
tenacity and the power of conservative principles.
"I am committed to staying in this race all the way to Tampa so
that the conservative movement has a real choice. I humbly ask
Senator Santorum's supporters to visit Newt.org to review my
conservative record and join us as we bring these values to
Tampa."
Paul also congratulated Santorum for "running such a spirited
campaign" and called himself "the last - and real - conservative
alternative to Mitt Romney."
Suspending the campaign allows Santorum to keep paying off
nearly $1 million in debt, according to recent Federal Election
Commission filings. Those debts include about $500,000 for media
consulting and tens of thousands more for telemarking and online
advertising, records show.
Other presidential candidates have eventually extinguished their
debt and terminated their campaigns. Former Minnesota Gov. Tom
Pawlenty officially shuttered his campaign committee on Tuesday,
owing as much as a half a million dollars last fall but slowly
whittling that figure down.
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