Although Rick Santorum suspended his presidential campaign on Tuesday, Boston University students and faculty said he was never likely to defeat Mitt Romney and clinch the Republican presidential nomination.
“We have carried the torch. High,” Santorum said in a statement from him and his wife on his website. “Together we have fought for the principles that this country was founded on. That made this country great. Without fighting for them, this country cannot continue to be great.”
As of Wednesday night, Santorum held 285 delegates, with Romney trumping this number more than two-fold, with 664 delegates, according to a New York Times tally using Associated Press numbers.
Romney also won primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia on April 3.
“It was only a matter of time [until] he dropped out,” said Douglas Kriner, a professor of political science at BU. “It was pretty clear that the delegate math was stacked against him, and his campaign doesn’t have enough money to compete with Romney and the big states that are coming up ahead.”
A number of BU students said Romney appeared to be in the lead.
“I always thought that Mitt Romney was the leading republican candidate,” said College of Arts and Sciences junior Alexa Beychok. “I never thought Santorum had a chance.”
While Romney has held the lead for most of the primary season, Santorum’s exit may solidify Romney’s chances of receiving the presidential bid, according to polls.
“Santorum dropping out of the race makes Romney the presumptive nominee,” said CAS sophomore James Blackmon. “Gingrich has been an even less viable candidate than Santorum for a long time.”
Santorum showed strong primary numbers in conservative states including Tennessee, Alabama and Kansas, according to the tally.
“I think it’s clear Santorum had good solid base of support on conservative wing,” Kriner said. “But [he] simply did not have enough money to compete with Romney.”
Greg DeSocio, a School of Management senior, said Republicans as a whole breathed a sigh of relief with the suspension of Santorum’s campaign.
“Santorum gave the party and gave the campaign a bad name,” he said.
However, although Blackmon said he was happy to see Santorum bow out, he said he would miss certain aspects that Santorum brought to the political arena.
“As a fan of sane people in political office, I’m glad that Santorum’s out of the race,” Blackmon said. “But as an even bigger fan of crazy stuff happening in the news, I’m sad to see him go.”
DeSocio said with Santorum gone, Romney no longer has to worry about any other candidate usurping him for the nomination.
“[The] general election can start right now, Romney doesn’t have to do any more campaigning for himself,” he said.
Kriner said Romney was in a period of rest where he could get geared up for the general election.
“Romney will lay low and reposition himself for [the] general election,” Kriner said. “[He] won’t worry about appealing to republican primary voters and [will] of course focus on the issues of concern to general election voters.”
In his statement, Santorum said his daughter has pneumonia, but is a fighter like him.
“You have been with me every step of the way,” he said. “Every volunteer, donor, friend and family has given sacrificially of their time and their treasure. We are humbled and thankful.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
