Santorum - Viable candidate, or long running GOP joke about being a politician against gay marriage?

So. Rick Santorum. Taking the election by storm (or so they tell us).
It seems that with Santorum's sudden rise he is the candidate who we should be recognizing as the key threat to Romney, Gingrich and Paul. Of course, this is a fun development albeit not one that I think should have people buying their Santorum for President decals and grocery totes juuust yet.

In terms of the media circus surrounding the primaries and caucuses (caucii? I like that better) it's certainly more entertaining to keep the field from narrowing too much this early on. And Santorum has a lot to say that the media is more than happy to give him stage time for. This is the common issue with these kinds of spikes in the primaries - nomatter how much attention you give to the guy who's got the hot button issue, in the end only the smallest, least electorally represented groups are going to really WANT that man in control. I consider this true in the case of Rick Santorum. People were zombie walking toward the proverbial 'anti-aboration baby killing socialist machine' sign flashing behind him and just bumped into him along the way. Bam. Voted for.

So let's suspend disbelief for a moment and pretend that Santorum were actually chosen at the RNC. Now imagine he won the same three states - Colorado, Montana and Missouri, for a total of 29 electoral college votes. Now consider that Romney won Florida, which has 29 electoral votes in itself. That's not counting the other two he's won so far. I'm not saying that Santorum doesn't have a chance, I'm just saying the numbers matter. A candidate winning a state that has more eventual electoral votes during the Primary actually means a lot more than how many states a candidate has won, regardless of the supposed victory. The more represented states are the ones that people should be looking at, because come convention time it's more likely the GOP will choose the candidate people like more in the harsh flourescent light of population density.

Ultimately I think Santorum is going to get the attention he needs to still be considered viable, maybe snag a couple of more states who knows maybe go out and get that new tie he's been eyeballing at Banana Republic for when he has to make his concession speech to Romney (....) and eventually they will get John Slattery to play him in the movie of the Years America Unraveled. You need to picture that title with a Jane Austen character staring across a field at a sunset with wind blowing through their hair.