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Can this possibly be for real?

A true-sounding aside from Alex Pareene: “Rick Santorum is the 2016 GOP nomination frontrunner.” It’s true because the runner-up of the last Republican primary always starts off with an advantage. McCain 2008. Dole 1996. Bush 1988. Reagan 1976. Romney looked like the candidate most likely to break the trend, but no longer.

Maybe! This is why I sort-of-but-not-really-but-then-again-maybe-seriously want Rick Santorum to win the nomination this year. The only hope for the future of the Republican Party is to finally nominate the conservative of their dreams and then go down to an epic, ego-shattering defeat. It would, perhaps, pound some sense into them and finally give the party’s moderates the backbone they need to wrest control away from the Limbaugh/Fox/Dobson/Norquist brigade. But if they nominate Romney and lose? Then, once again, it will be because they denied the one true faith. And that could, I suppose, make Santorum the frontrunner for 2016. Buckle up.

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Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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