Last night was a huge night for Rick Santorum.

He has now won 4 primaries/caucuses (3 non binding) winning the most states out of any of the candidates.

Santorum has also not experienced the intense scrutiny of being a front runner that is not named Mitt Romney. He’s going to have a lot of the establishment on his tail, plus he’ll have the GOP Death Star aka Romney setting his sights on him.

Truth be told, Romney can’t afford to go as negative on Santorum as he did Gingrich. Should Romney do that he will look truly entitled to the nomination. Expect him to be more subtle with his attacks on Santorum.

Meanwhile Santorum doesn’t take well to criticism. He gets irritated rather easily and doesn’t like it when he’s challenged on things he believes in. Plus, expect Newt to point out, respectfully, Santorum’s support of the Progressive Income Tax, his support of earmarks (going as far as saying he’s proud of his earmarks), and his statist-ish views on manufacturing. Newt can also point out that while he took steps to reduce the federal budget in the 90s, Santorum voted for debt ceiling increases throughout the Bush administration.

Look for Newt to try and make a comeback while pointing all of this out and while Santorum dukes it out with Romney.

I think we can expect Newt to pick up a few states on Super Tuesday and if he gets to the magic number 5, he’ll keep his campaign alive, money or no money all the way to the convention. He wants Romney challenged.

Though the establishment will want to make sure no one else puts their name forward at the convention, expect some GOP outsiders to put their names forward. Expect Ann Coulter to write columns about how it’s Chris Christie’s duty to put his name in.

I still think Romney’s the likely nominee, but SMOD just got a little boost last night didn’t it?