There’s been a lot of confusion swirling around Rick Santorum’s “sweeping victory” in Tuesday’s three state GOP primary. He clearly won Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri which seems in and of itself surprising and a potential indicator of how the midwest might vote. But the race is not really for votes, its for delegates, and in Tuesday’s primaries no delegates were committed.

It’s important too to realize that these “beauty contest” primaries are not representative. In Missouri, they had less than 6% of the voting population turnout, in Minnesota just over 1%, and in Colorado well below 2%. Even more important is the idea that these are the voters most excited or impassioned by a candidate or the issues that candidate embodies. Who else would show up for a primary where delegates weren’t actually decided?

What Santorum’s sweep could say is that he is the candidate of pro-life voters. There’s been a lot of news in the last couple of weeks around the abortion issue and its long been known that pro-life Republicans like to make their voice heard. Tuesday’s primaries probably say more about that than Santorum’s likelihood of getting nominated.