Rick Santorum says goodbye to the White House race The nominee for the Republican Party will be Mitt Romney. That was always a reasonable cert in this horse race. Now that Rick Santorum has bowed out it leaves Mitt with two terriers snapping at his heels. My hope was for Ron Paul to make it. Still is. But the system will give the nomination to Romney and he will lose. How he can expect to win I do not know. Many Republicans are dismissive of him. And his candidature will act as a pivot to the accusations that he is out of touch. With America fumbling its way around the margins of recession, an affluent flip-flopper may not sit well with the aspirations of Middle America. Unless Barack Obama does something really stupid he'll win in November. And it could be so very different.

read more: Rick Santorum bows out of gruelling GOP battle