I too think it's likely to be Romney, but I think it's by no means certain. The final primaries are a long way away, and a lot can happen in that time frame. But, as I also said in the original post, even if Santorum is no more relevant once the dust settles than Huckabee was in 2008, his success (which has already outstripped Huckabee's by a good bit) reveals quite a bit about the depth of division in this country and the lengths to which the far right are willing to go.

If the left has made a fatal error, over and over in the last two decades, it is failing to take the right seriously, and dismissing its talking heads as irrelevant lunatics. Did anyone honestly think we'd even be talking about half of the issues that are actually talking points today? And yet, here we are. That Santorum has gained even as much ground as he has (same goes for Gingrich), win or lose, should (I hope), wake up the left to the reality of right wing extremism as something to be taken seriously.