Santorum Poised to Win Missouri “Beauty Contest”

It looks like Santorum will carry Missouri, but he’ll need to do more than that to regain his footing as a legitimate candidate as the GOP race heats up. Santorum had 45 percent of the votes and an 11-point lead on Mitt Romney in a survey taken in late January. Newt Gingrich won’t be on the ballot for the mid-March caucuses. The problem for Santorum, though, is that a vetoed bill and the transition from primary to caucuses makes Missouri a glorified opinion-poll funded by the state. [National Review]