Is Santorum Next?

From HuffPo:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry will drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday ahead of South Carolina's primary election, CNN reports.

Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times confirms the news.

Perry is expected to address his decision to abandon his campaign at a press conference in North Charleston, S.C. at 11 a.m. ET.

So now we're down to Mitt Romney, Ron Paul (my personal worst case scenario candidate), Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum. Will Rick drop out next? Not if the religious right has anything to do with it.

From the LA Times:

In an effort to avoid a repeat of 2008, when social conservatives failed to rally behind a single Republican presidential candidate, a group of more than 100 religious leaders who gathered in Texas this week reached a consensus to support former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said the decision was reached after three rounds of balloting, with Santorum winning 85 votes in the final round, to Newt Gingrich’s 29. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had strong support at the beginning of the process, but was eliminated after the first round of balloting, Perkins said.

. . . .

“Rick Santorum has consistently articulated the issues that are of concern to conservatives, both the economic and the social, and has woven those into a very solid platform,” Perkins said. “And he has a record of stability…He’s reliable."

It'll be interesting to see what happens now. If bigotry is still enough to be a Republican front-runner, Santorum's got this in the bag. I think, however, that Republicans these days want a big scoop of crazy to go with their ass-backwardness. And, unfortunately, Rick might be the least nuts guy left.

Well that's a terrifying thought.