… and will set soon.

The Republican nominating race continues on its bizarre trajectory.

I wrote a couple of months ago during the first Newt Gingrich surge that Rick Santorum had a right to feel aggrieved with his god because although he is a true believer, god had not granted him his moment in the sun the way that he had with all the other candidates (Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry) who also felt that god wanted them to be president. It is true that god being so fickle and a bit of a tease pulled the rug from under all of them, like he did with Tim Tebow, but at least they all briefly enjoyed the limelight. Even Donald Trump, of all people, briefly rose to the top of the polls, even though he never declared his candidacy.

But his god has answered Santorum’s prayers. Although none of the caucuses and primaries on Tuesday committed any delegates, Santorum’s easy wins in all three of them will cause even greater consternation to the party establishment than the rise of the above three previous pretenders to the throne. They all rose and fell so fast on their own that the establishment did not have to waste much energy in disposing of them.

Gingrich’s surprisingly strong showing and the ferocity of his attacks on Romney and his business practices were, and still are, problems for the party but Gingrich has so much political and personal baggage that the party establishment can gun for him without even bringing up the issues that are important to the party’s base and thus risk alienating them. Romney and his supporters can bring Gingrich down by ferocious negative ad focusing on personal issues such as his quasi-lobbying activities, ethics sanctions by Congress, failure as Speaker, multiple affairs and marriages, his buffoonish grandiosity (Moon colonies? Mars missions?), and lack of discipline.

Santorum does not have the non-policy weak points that Gingrich has. He cannot be attacked on the issues he supports because those issues happen to be important to a core Republican constituency. He is a consistent and true believer in all the hot button social issues that are so dear to the so-called ‘social conservatives’ segment of the Republican electorate that is highly vocal and visible and has for so long provided the grass-roots energy for the party. Opposition to abortion? Check. Opposition to contraception? Check. Hate gays and lesbians? Check. Want to make the US a Christian country? Check. Oppose the idea of anyone having sex outside of marriage? Check. Think that minorities are being coddled when they really need some tough love? Check.

Mitt Romney is the oligarchy’s choice and thus is still highly likely to win. I think that if the Republican party establishment simply waits it out, Santorum will self-destruct. But I can afford to be nonchalant about this because I think that with Santorum as the Republican nominee, the party will suffer a massive defeat in the November election because his is a distinctly minority viewpoint. The party establishment is unlikely to take the chance of a Santorum win and will likely gun for him soon. The reason for their fear is that the turnout in the nominating process so far has been disturbingly low, sometimes as low as one or two percent of the voting population, and such situations breed volatility and unpredictability and magnify the influence of the most fervent.

Santorum’s main weakness is his rigid, almost fanatical, religiosity but that is the one thing that cannot be attacked by his Republican opponents who also pander to that same group of religious nutters. The voice of the party’s nutty base, Rush Limbaugh, has already fired a warning shot, warning the party establishment that it is Santorum who truly represents the party’s soul and they cross him at their peril.

It is going to be interesting to see in the coming days how the big shots in the Republican party who have already declared their love for Romney, many of whom also pay lip service to Santorum’s social conservative agenda, will bring Santorum down without at the same time alienating all the party’s supporters who fervently share the same goals as he does. Look for them to comb through his speeches and voting record in Congress to find something to use against him.