About last night... the GOP primaries in AL and MS

Santorum won both states last night.

Nate Silver in the NYT on Gingrich's losses

Newt Gingrich's spokesman R.C. Hammond called both Alabama and Mississippi "must wins" for his candidate. Mr. Gingrich lost both states to Rick Santorum, instead.

Was Romney punished by southern voters for being a Mormon? More from Nate, noting that Romney underperformed versus earlier polls:

We mentioned earlier that polls are having a rough night in Mississippi. They projected Mitt Romney to win 34 percent of the vote there and several gave him the lead. But with most of the vote counted, he has 30 percent so far instead and is running in third place. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is running significantly ahead of his polls.

As Political Wire notes, it wasn't a great night for Romney, who finished third in both states: rospars:

RT @politicalwire: Romney adviser: "I don't think anybody expected Mitt to win AL or MS." Romney yesterday: "We are going to win tomorrow."

Kombiz adds:

RT @kombiz: If an executive came to me and said lemme spend $100M to be 3rd in GOP primaries, I'd say You're Fired. #BusinessMitt

Kombiz adds:

kombiz: Honestly, Kudos to McCain.. In 2008 he actually had to beat serious contenders for the presidency. Romney can't beat fringe candidates

ABC News' exit polls show that voters were skeptical of Romney's conservative credentials, half branded him "not conservative enough." Duh, he's a northeast liberal. Or at least he was. Now it's not clear if he was even honest about being a liberal.

More concern about Romney's double 3rd place finish from Politico:

Rick Santorum delivered another sharp shock to Mitt Romney’s campaign Tuesday night, claiming victory in the Alabama and Mississippi presidential primaries and reinforcing — yet again — conservative hesitations about the GOP front-runner.

Gingrich says Romney is "not much of a frontrunner."

But before everyone gets giddy over how well Rick Santorum is doing, keep in mind that Americans are more than capable of electing the man president. (Would you really put it past them? These are the people who re-elected George Bush.) So be careful what, or who, you wish for.