Santorum Suspends Campaign

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced he was suspending his campaign at a press conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His exit from the campaign all but assures that Mitt Romney will be challenging Barack Obama for the presidency in November.

It's unclear why he picked today as the day to step aside, although a look at the polls in his home state offer a clue. According to Public Policy Polling, Romney was leading Santorum in the polls among likely Pennsylvania voters by a score of 42 to 37 percent. Many people argued that Romney's campaign would not survive if he could not win his home state of Michigan, so perhaps Santorum saw the doom facing his own political future if he couldn't win in Pennsylvania.

He may also be felt the pressure from within the party to get out of the way. "I think we're entering a phase where it could become counterproductive if this drags on for much longer," said Paul Ryan several weeks ago, in a not-quite-very-ringing endorsement for Mitt Romney. Romney already has problems appealing to Republican voters in the South; the last thing the GOP needs is lesser candidates exposing more flaws in their already-flawed frontrunner.

Whatever the case, Santorum is now out. It looks like the GOP thinks the best chance Romney has in winning over those southern voters is to get started sooner, rather than later.