Ron Paul

Call it a “bloodbath,” call it “mass hysteria,” or just call it a presidential caucus.   Call it what you want, but a day of electoral uncertainty in Missouri has proven what many already knew: The Show-Me State won't be showing its cards in the Republican president-making game any time soon.   “Vote your conscience!” Rick Santorum told a crowd in St. Louis on Saturday morning before hustling off to several other bite-sized campaign stops, all to snipe at Romney and shore up support in a state he'd already swept in a nonbinding February primary.

Responding to a question Tuesday about whether a Newt Gingrich-Rick Santorum ticket was possible, Gingrich offered a vague, but tantalizing answer: "I wouldn't be surprised, once we're through the primaries if it still looks like it does now, to see the conservatives come together. " But the former House speaker, interviewed in the radio studio of "The Rick & Bubba Show," said he thought he would campaign up until the Republicans nominate a presidential candidate. He predicted Mitt Romney would fall short of the delegates needed to win outright and said the convention could be the most exciting since 1940, when no nominee had it locked up. "There's a certain advantage, I think right now, in having both of us tag-team Romney because neither one of us by ourselves can raise the money to match Romney," he said.

Hoping to improve on his third-place finish in the Kansas caucuses in 2008, Ron Paul was scheduled to make three campaign stops on Friday and planned to visit four caucuses on Saturday to deliver five-minute synopses of his libertarian agenda. Citing the nation's wars, its struggling economy and its failing educational system, Paul told more than 400 sign-toting supporters in the state capital: "These problems could be solved by just following the Constitution, and that is what we really need.

Aiming to extinguish Newt Gingrich's campaign and emerge as Mitt Romney's sole rival, Rick Santorum stumped in Topeka, the capital of Kansas, and Wichita, its largest city, on Friday, the day before the state's caucuses and four days before crucial contests in Alabama and Mississippi. "We have an opportunity to potentially narrow this race down so we can go one-on-one with Gov. Romney, and once that happens, the conservative will be nominated," Santorum told about 250 people in the ornate waiting room of a 1927 Union Pacific railroad station.

Who's ready to go to war with Iran? Oh, I forgot. Since we now have an army of professionals, none of the rest of us is actually required to go to war. And, since we now allow commanders-in-chief to unilaterally send that army into battle whenever they please, members of Congress don't have to bother voting for a declaration of war. War has become a matter of presidential choice. That's why we should take seriously what the candidates for president have to say about attacking Iran.

Poor Mitt Romney. He won six of 10 states on Super Tuesday, including hotly contested Ohio. He lengthened his lead in the count of delegates who will actually choose the Republican presidential nominee. But he's still a long way from claiming victory. Why? Because there's no compelling reason for Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul to drop out of the race. Each has a reason to keep fighting at least through April - and maybe all the way to the convention in August. The elongated GOP primary race is partly a product of new party rules that aimed deliberately to produce a longer campaign, mostly by allowing losing candidates to win more of the delegates through proportional allocation.

Super Tuesday accomplished exactly one thing: The long, grueling slog to the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., will go on ... and on ... and on. Mitt Romney walked away with the most delegates and won the most states, but his wins did not seal the deal or make him the consensus nominee. Winning in his home state of Massachusetts was always a certainty. Taking Vermont was no surprise; it is moderate country and part of his New England base. Winning Idaho was nearly a sure thing too because the state is home to so many of his fellow Mormons.

Mitt Romney has won the Virginia Republican presidential primary, according to the Associated Press. Romney was the clear favorite in the state, where just two Republican candidates - Romney and Ron Paul - had qualified for the ballot. Forty-nine delegates are at stake in that race, and Romney is likely to win all or nearly all of them. Thirteen of the delegates will be awarded to the candidate who wins 50% or more of the vote and an additional 33 delegates will be awarded by congressional district.

Mitt Romney won the Vermont primary, the Associated Press projected, easily beating Rick Santorum and Ron Paul in a New England state that borders Massachusetts, where Romney served as governor. It's Romney's second prize of Super Tuesday, after Virginia was also called in his favor. Vermont was called based on exit polls, which projected a double-digit margin for Romney. Paul and Santorum were closely matched for second place. Based on early returns, Romney, Paul and Santorum stood to collect delegates in Vermont.