2012 Decoded

Mitt Romney is no longer the only candidate who cares deeply about delegate math apparently. Rival Rick Santorum dropped into Missouri today to greet Republicans taking part in the state's weirdly arcane delegate-selection process, which seems to have as many steps as the Washington Monument.

The caucus process lasts over several weeks and will produce no results until June, when the party should already be far along in settling on a presidential nominee. And yet there was the  primary underdog, hopscotching to multiple caucus sites Saturday in search of hands to shake.

"We've got some new delegate math that we're going to be putting out that shows this race is a lot different than what the consensus is," Santorum told a group of caucus goers at the Ballwin, Mo. police station. "We're looking at the rules, we're looking at how things are stacking up, and we're in much better shape in these caucuses and some of these apportioned states or winner-take-all states, which in fact are not winner-take-all states. We're in this fight. We're going to be in it until the end.  We're going to win."

With that, Santorum proved that political pitches based on delegate math are uninspiring no matter which candidate is doing the pitching.