When Will Santorum and Gringrich Drop Out of the Race?

Last week we heard that Mitt Romney's campaign was over if he lost Michigan. After all, the Great Lakes State is Mitt's "native" land. It's where he was born. Never mind that he hasn't live in MI for 40 years. Forget the fact that he was actually governor of a different initial-M state. Nope, according to tedious talking heads in the media, if Mitt lost the mitten he might as well pull up his political stakes and get back to his life as an ultra-successful business dude.

And Mitt almost lost Michigan. The open primary state was ripe for an upset with Democrats crossing over to vote against the man from Mass . . . I mean, Michigan. By now most informed folk are aware of the Santorum campaign robo-calling Democratic households in Michigan, urging them to vote against Romney because he didn't support the auto industry bailout (interestingly, Santorum's message didn't mention that he was against the bailout as well). And despite Santorum's later claim that it was "Reagan Democrats" who crossed-over to notch his name, we also know through exit polling that the Democrats who voted for Santorum were heavily the voters who considered themselves "very liberal" and "against the tea party." In other words, since Santorum is the darling of the tea party movement, we know the Ds voting for him were note voting out of love . . . unless you mean they were voting out of love for the guy they really, really want Obama to face in November.

But despite it all, Romney won his "native state" in much the same way Reagan won his years before (for the record, that would be Illinois). So now I find myself asking the question I heard an analyst drop during the last news cycle. If Michigan was Romney's "must win" what about Santorum and Gringrich? Where is their "must win." When will they finally drop out of the race.

I've heard the arguments that this contentious primary is good for the Republican brand. That it vets the candidates and the winner will have already suffered so many attacks that any assault Obama attempts will be old news. But I don't buy it. First of all, Obama will not use the same attacks. Where Santorum and Gringrich attack Romney as a moderate liberal, Obama will paint him a Bush conservative. And even more concerning, the Republicans are spending hoards of campaign dollars, lightening their coffers in a drastic way before what is sure to be a Scrooge McDuck level presidential race. Let's face it, Obama outspent McCain by a ton the last time around, and given the way the Left has mastered campaign finance violations, we can expect more of the same in the next campaign. We need to bring this Republican bloodletting to an end!

Yesterday Romney won the non-binding Washington state caucus, so again I ask: what will it take before Santorum and Gingrinch drop out of the race? And how much damage will they do to the chance of beating Obama before that time has come?