Historically speaking the guy who finished second in the Presidential primaries is the Republican parties nominee 4 years later.
Hmm. True for Reagan. For Bush Sr it took 8 years but he was the nominee. It wasn't true for Bush Jr. since he didn't run against Dole. It was true for McCain and it was true for Romney.
So, by overwhelming recent history, Santorum will be the Republican nominee in 2016
Most of us thinking people (aka 51%) hope that he will be, then the GOP will truly die out as the inferior, bankrupt ideology that it has become in the last 30+ years with no place in a thinking person's 21st century. If the republicans keep that up, they won't lose with only 48%, they will lose with 40%, then less and less after each election. As long as they keep endorsing these inferior mental defects, and that's exactly what the majority of the candidates were in the primaries, then they will fail over and over again.
Whats the point of being conservative? They act as if they alone are fiscally responsible (fact: they aren't, anyone with a pee brain can go to google and see where most of the debt over the last 30 years originated under which presidencies). They act as if the conservatives are the most moral, which is laughable at any angle you look at it. They act as if they are for freedom, when Patriot act was the crowning achievement of Bush's terms, not to mention banning gay marriage (after all, nothing says FREEDOM like denying people's pursuits like BANNING something they find objectionable) and making laws based on religion, you know, like what the Taliban do.
What does the republican's have to offer? What is there to support? All they want to do is do the same shit that got us into most of these messes in the first place. Stupid wars in the middle east that has resulted in NOTHING for us, that have nearly bankrupted us ($2.5 trillion and counting, not to MENTION the 6000+ soldiers that have died), financial systems that nearly brought down the entire global economy because we get rid of regulations that were designed to stop those very things, and didn't enforce them even when we had them. Giving tax breaks to "job creators" even though they have been given a HUGE tax break in the last 12 years without ANY JOB GROWTH. Exactly, GOP are nothing more than carriers of the "government = bad" meme that has fucked us up for too long. GOP is all about self fulfilling prophecy. Take funding away from agency, agency fails, then point to them and say "See? I told you government is bad!".
It's idiocy that isn't backed up by reality. As evidenced by their head in the sand approach to the rest of the country in this last election. They are a dying breed for a good reason: it's no longer needed in modern society. GOP are like the tail bone of the human body: leftovers from evolution that has no purpose anymore, all it is now is a pain in the ass reminder of what used to be but is no longer needed.