He gave it a good run tho:
Rick Santorum’s decision to drop out of the Republican presidential race came after he spent the holiday weekend evaluating the race with his family, who were grappling with the latest hospitalization of his 3-year-old daughter Bella.
Santorum’s path to the nomination hinged on three puzzle pieces falling neatly in place, multiple sources close to the campaign told CNN, a prospect that grew dimmer with each passing day.
The campaign, eagerly looking ahead to a slew of conservative leaning states that vote in May, had hoped that Texas would adjust its proportional primary rules and award its treasure trove of 155 delegates on a winner-take-all basis — but Texas Republicans dismissed the idea.
Santorum was also hoping that Gingrich, who has also been competing for the same conservative anti-Romney voters, would drop out of the race, something the former House Speaker shows no signs of doing.
Finally, the campaign understood that a victory in Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania on April 24 was crucial.
Romney’s poll numbers have lately creeped up in Pennsylvania and his campaign was in the process of unleashing a more than $2 million negative ad blitz against Santorum across the state, but Santorum aides said they remained confident that they would pull out a win on their home turf.
His campaign reported it was nearly $1 million in debt last month and would have been forced to drain its campaign account to compete with Romney and his allies on the costly Pennsylvania airwaves, another factor in Santorum’s decision.
“The Romney team was putting a lot of money out there,” said one Santorum adviser who did not want to be named discussing internal decision-making. “The budget was a factor.”
Despite trailing in the delegate count, Santorum vowed as recently as last week to remain in the race until one candidate reached the 1,144 delegates needed to capture the nomination.
However, during a conference call with his wife, Karen, campaign manager and staff before his announcement on Tuesday, Santorum said the decision was based on personal and political factors, according to a Santorum source. A campaign adviser also said the financial state of the campaign probably played a role in the conclusion.
“We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over for me and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting,” Santorum said during his speech in Gettysburg on Tuesday. “We will continue to fight for those voices for those Americans who stood up and gave us that air under our wings.”
