They Don't Like Him. They Really Don't Like Him,

Willard M. Romney, that is:

Rick Santorum had a breakthrough night Tuesday, winning GOP presidential contests in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, all of which is expected to breathe life into his struggling campaign and slow Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney has a shitloat of money, both his own and the cash that his predatory capitalist buddies have been dumping into Mitt's super-pac. Team Mittens is going around the nation, telling Republicans that he alone has the money to bury the others in advertising buys and that since he's going to win anyway, everyone should shut up, be a bunch of good little Germans, and fall into line behind Mitt the Inevitable.

Except that the GOP's conservative base apparently despises Romney and they made their displeasure known last night.

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas.

As others have pointed out, Romney won Minnesota in 2008 and last night, even with T-Paw's endorsement, he came in a distant third.

A long nominating contest isn't, of itself, bad. It can energize the members of a party. The protracted battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama didn't hurt him. Of course, things were different four years ago. McCain committed a serious unforced error when he listened to his groin and chose the Wasilla Whackaloon as his running mate. The near-collapse of the banking sector hurt McCain, as he flailed around in response. And the level of animosity between the center-right and left-wing Democrats in 2008 was far lower than the animosity that I see inside the GOP. There is really a war going on between what I would call the party of Hoover and the party of the Confederacy.

Santorum would be beaten like a gong in the general election. I don't think that point is arguable.

The problem for Romney is a modern one. Historically, candidates have sought to pander to the party faithful and then, once the nomination has been secured, move to the center of the spectrum to work on the independents and the moderates in the opposing party. A candidate could say some truly obnoxious things in Dubuque in January and all that they'd face is maybe some ad quoting him in September, where some deep-voiced announcer read the quote.

But those days are gone, thanks to digital hard drives. Every word that a presidential candidate speaks before a camera ends up on a hard drive for the other party. Everything that Romney says in order to over the right-wing voters who, for good reasons, don't trust him will be thrown back in Romney's face this fall. Every hard word he has for immigrants, minorities, the poor, workers, and women will be used against him. Stephen Colbert's attack ad will, by comparison, look like a love tap.

The Obama campaign and its allies might not even have to work that hard. The polls seem to be indicating that the more people across the country learn of Romney, the less they like him. As somebody once put it, Romney looks the the robotic guy who fired your father without feeling a qualm. Romney comes across as the kind of decent-looking guy who, if you had a drink with him, would roofie your drink, steal your wallet, rape you, slit your throat, ransack your home, torch the place and then leave with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.

Mitt-- Separated at birth? --Ted

And you can bet that you'll see ads alluding to that this fall, that is, if Gingrich doesn't run them before then.