Santorum ends presidential race

After a bruising campaign that began in Iowa on January 3, Santorum declared at a press conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: The race is over for me. The decision leave Romney with a clear route to the Republican nomination at the party convention in August.Flanked by his family and close aides, Santorum said: We made the decision to get into this race at our kitchen table against all the odds, and we made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race is over for me – and we will suspend our campaign effective today – were not done fighting, adding he would continue to battle have his socially conservative views heard.Romney, freed from the distraction of having to campaign in the Republican race, will now be able to focus his energy and funds on the battle with Obama. He must now hope that the deep GOP divisions exposed in the primaries and caucuses can be bridged, and that the Republican party will unite behind him.The former Massachusetts governor can depend on the party millionaires who regard Obama as too left-wing to pile in behind him, ready to fund one of the biggest negative ad campaigns in US political history. The question is whether the party grassroots – who regard Romney as too moderate – will join the rally behind him.Romney has much ground to make up. Obamas re-election campaign team, based in Chicago, has been building networks of supporters in the swing states, and Obama himself has been out on the campaign trail for months. As Santorum was delivering his resignation speech, Obama was taking to the stage at an event in Florida.The president, in a speech at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, hammered the Republicans over their protection of tax breaks for millionaires, which Obama intends to make a key election issue – one he hopes will define the difference between Democrats and Republicans.