I awoke this morning almost expecting to lift the lid on my computer to discover that last night's Santorum sweep was but a beautiful dream.

Don't get me wrong. Rick Santorum is a total freak, and there's no way the GOP establishment is suicidal enough to let him win their party's nomination. But the Republican base is clearly psychotic, and the more they demonstrate how much they hate Mitt Romney, the harder they make it for him to win in November.

There is an argument to make that the extended contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008 helped make the latter a better candidate, while heaping media coverage on the Dems to the detriment of John McCain. But that's not what's going on here. Romney's inability to win in the crucial Midwest—or in caucus states, or in state's where he doesn't flood the airwaves with a shit-ton of advertising—exposes how weak he is. Sure, Romney got a clean victory in Florida, where he outspent his opponents a kajillion to one, but he won't have that sort of monetary advantage in the general, even if the Koch brothers spend a half-billion dollars on his behalf.

In county after county, state after state, Republican primary/caucus turnout is down from 2008, as is Romney's percentage of the vote. Sometimes dramatically. Most Republicans know that his nomination is inevitable, and yet they just can't help but give him the electoral finger. The more they get to know Romney, the less they like him.

Let's be clear: Romney just lost three states, by decisive margins, to fucking Rick Santorum, for chrisakes, a candidate whose vision of America is drawn directly from the pages of The Handmaid's Tale. That can't be good for Republican prospects.

At this late stage, the Republican leadership has no choice but to soldier on, pretending that this is a healthy, constructive process, all the while working behind the scenes to assure that Romney collects as large a delegate advantage as possible. But if you don't think that down-ticket GOPers aren't quaking in their boots at the prospect of crowding on to Romney's tiny, impotent coattails, you don't know squat about electoral politics.