Santorum on Gingrich's campaign: "It didn't work"

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum held his Florida election night rally not in Florida, but in Nevada, the state to hold the next nominating contest

Nevada holds its caucuses on Saturday. After his distant third-place finish in the Sunshine state, Santorum told a Las Vegas crowd, "We're going to have a little different result than what we saw in Florida."

Santorum continues to paint himself as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who added Florida as his second victory in a month, along with New Hampshire.

Santorum said Newt Gingrich "had his opportunity" to be the conservative nominee after a big win in South Carolina, but added, "it didn't work."

Meanwhile, Gingrich promised his supporters that he would keep his campaign going until the Republican convention this summer.

In Las Vegas, the former senator congratulated Romney for his "resounding" victory in Florida, but went on to chide both Romney and Gingrich for creating a Republican "mud wrestling match" in the Sunshine state.

"Republicans can do better," Santorum said. "We can do better than the discussion and the dialogue and the accusations that were going on in the state of Florida," referring to the harsh attacks both Romney and Gingrich employed in the last week.

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"The American public does not want to see two or three candidates get into a mud wrestling match where everyone gets dirty," Santorum said, adding that "What we saw in the last few weeks in the state of Florida is not going to help us win this election" against President Obama in the fall.

The former senator is using his narrow Iowa caucus victory and support among religious conservatives to maintain his relevancy in the GOP nominating contest.

Despite an uphill battle to win the Florida primary, Santorum campaigned in the Sunshine state hoping to be a serious contender. But after spending nearly a week in Florida, a state where the winner wins all 50 delegates, his polling never moved above low double-digits.

Santorum left the campaign trail Saturday to go home to Pennsylvania to gather his tax returns for release, but then his daughter Bella was hospitalized with pneumonia, which kept him off the campaign trail for most of the weekend. Instead of returning to Florida, he headed to states with upcoming nominating contests, including Nevada, Colorado and Missouri.

Full CBS News coverage: Rick Santorum

Mitt Romney scores big win in Florida primary
Triumphant Romney pivots back to attacking Obama
Gingrich: My campaign is the "people's campaign"
Ron Paul sets sights on Nevada caucuses

39 Photos

Rick Santorum on the campaign trail

[venusvegasvada]

I actually like Rick Santorum. Is smart and has some good ideas, as do Romney and Paul. I was expecting to see Newt handed his walking papers a long time ago. I would have loved to see Santorum, Romney, Paul debate like human beings without Newt around. Too bad that will never happen as long as Newt "the human anchor" Gingrich is around.

Maybe you guys can give the wrong address to Newt for the next debate? Just an thought...

[JV1970]

It's a shame that the more conservative Southern red Bible belt states, except South Carolina, don't hold their primaries until later. Maybe Romney wouldn't have such a lead if their primaries were earlier.

I'm not a fan of Romney and I'm not at all happy with tonight's election results. I will likely hold my nose and vote for him if he's the GOP nominee, because I think he will be the lesser of the two evils, but I WON'T LIKE IT!

[JV1970]

AttentionDeficit If you knew anything at all about Florida you'd know that it's just about the LEAST conservative of all the Southern states due to all of it's retirees from the north. The real conservative Southern states are Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas. Even though they aren't in the deep South, Oklahoma and Arizona are also a very conservative Republican states. Most of them are in what is called the Bible belt, too, where many people still worship God and attend church on Sunday and still believe the Bible is the Holy Word of God and have very conservative values.

Even though most of them, except Texas, don't carry many electoral votes, the primaries in those states just might go much differently than the one last night!

[JV1970]

AttentionDeficit They also have less pollution, less stressful ways of life, and as for the income, there are high income jobs in the South too as evidenced by the McMansions in the suburbs.

Also you're forgetting that some of the top universities in the country are in the South. For instance Vanderbilt, Duke, and Auburn.
Most of the space program is also in the South, in Florida and Houston.

You may put the South down and ridicule the Southerners but I assure you that Southerners have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of!