Imagine that. A Rethuglican winning the Party's Nomination without winning the south. If the south doesn't matter to the Republicans anymore, what significance does it have to the rest of the country? Romney wins the nomination while losing SC, GA, AL, MS. It sucks to be from the south. He will lose Texas, too and still have the honor of losing to Obama. This will cause a bigger revolt in the GOP, and next time they will have even a more conservative candidate lose to our next Democratic President.
Santorum says everything conservatives like, and dobles down. He wins the south but still falls behinder in delegates. Romney wins without the South. It sucks to be from the south. Obama won without the deep south, but he did get VA and NC. The south is irrelevant to national electoral politics. They dug their own grave. Now they can climb down into it.