Republicans' failure to unite behind a credible candidate or platform is improving Barack Obama's chances of a second term
If any reminder were needed of how conflicted the US Republican party is about its choice of 2012 presidential candidate, party members in three states have provided it this week. In one sense, Rick Santorum's wins in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado are not as important as they may appear since, under the arcane and varied rules of the nomination process, they give him no pledged delegates to the August party convention. Coming after his poor showing in every one of the primaries and caucuses since his narrow win in Iowa at the start of January, however, they breathe new life into Mr Santorum's ailing campaign and pose unwelcome problems to Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who hoped they had emerged from the January contests as front runner and chief challenger respectively.
For Mr Romney, this week's defeats are a clear warning that he has not yet achieved the irresistible momentum towards the nomination that his well-funded wins in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada might have led him to hope. Mr Romney did not campaign hard in this week's three contests, preferring to concentrate his awesome financial backing in states which vote at the end of February and in the early March "Super Tuesday" contests, when serious numbers of pledged delegates are up for grabs. But this only underscores Mr Romney's continuing weakness as a candidate relying on money and momentum rather than political conviction and credibility. He is still the man to beat, but his capture of the nomination, if it eventually occurs, has an increasingly pyrrhic feel, since the longer the contests go on, the clearer it becomes that most Republicans do not really support him.
The consolation for Mr Romney is that the many Republicans who want a candidate who more clearly shares their conservative values and prejudices are unable to make up their minds which one to support. Mr Gingrich trades as the arch-conservative option, but his record and personality are so contradictory that he is having an uphill task translating his successes into wider credibility. It says a lot about his flawed candidacy that he has been unable both to prevent Mr Santorum, a dull and deeply social conservative rival, from resurrecting his campaign this week, or to take chunks out of Mr Romney's support either.
The undoubted winner this week, therefore, is Barack Obama, who watches as his opponents expend sound, fury and dollars denouncing one another while voters gradually move back in his direction. Mr Obama is not an inevitable winner in November – as the voters in 2010 showed. But the Republicans' failure to unite behind a credible candidate or platform is improving Mr Obama's chances by the day – and there are many more days of Republican division still to go in this race.