Oh  just stop it, you guys.

Why not Santorum? If you believe the new CNN/Time poll numbers out of Iowa — and some are questioning the survey’s methodology — then Rick Santorum is the latest GOP presidential candidate to begin to surge, jumping 11 points in less than a month. And, in some ways, the surge is fitting. After all, he is a more consistent conservative than the other candidates (especially Romney, Paul, and Gingrich); he has busted his tail campaigning throughout Iowa the old fashioned way (one county, church, Pizza Ranch and coffee house at a time); and he’s been a consistently solid performer at the debates. What’s more, he’s won statewide in an important swing state TWICE (though also lost there badly in 2006), and he’s a big hawk on national security and Iran (an issue that could become bigger and bigger in the days ahead). So why not Santorum? In these ways, his surge seems to make more sense than Gingrich’s did a month ago.

Rick Santorum has been campaigning almost exclusively in Iowa since summer. And after six months of talking to farmers and housewives in near deserted diners and bowling alleys he is poised to come in …. third place; that is behind Flip-Flop the Richy-Rich Robot and a cranky old bigot who suffers from paruresis if your bathroom is too gay (hint: hide the shea butter soap).

Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus in 2008 (how’d that turn out?) and the all-important third place position that year was claimed by, let’s see…., oh yes, Fred Thompson who either couldn’t be bothered to campaign or was already dead by that time – it was hard to tell.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see Rick Santorum heading the Republican ticket come November but, dudes, having run through the Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich campaign bromances we’re starting to get the feeling that you’re just fucking with us out of sheer boredom and the horror of hours spent alone in an Iowa hotel room with an empty honor bar (“God help me, I even drank the Keystone Light… Someone please save me.”).

Besides, that one kid up there, the boy? Yeah, him. He looks like he’s just one more rejection away from a date with Mr. High-Powered Rifle and the Seemingly Innocent Strategically Located Clock Tower.

Then nobody wins….