WARNING: Don't misunderestimate him: Santorum may actually be electable. [View all]

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So like many of us and like the pundits, I watched Santorum's speech tonight, and then Romney's. Santorum can give a good speech - not outstanding, but good, and with feeling.

Romney's speech showed him at his worst -- as a merchandizer, as Tweety said afterwards. The worst part of Romney's speech was when he recited the line

"O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!" -- and THEN Romney, rather than making some heart-felt point about veterans, just did a shout-out -- along the lines of "Any veterans in the audience? Raise your hand" a lot like the gameshow emcee he too often appears to be.

Romney up until now looked like the Republican's Mr. Electable. Santorum looks like Mr. Electable now.

Let's start with the all-important image stuff: Santorum is a tall man, he has enough hair, and he looks really quite youthful for his 52 years. He's not a raving beauty, but you could call him low-key handsome. He's not a full-on fatty like Gingrich, although he does have a little bit of a belly.

As I said above, he's really not a bad speaker at all. He seems to show real feeling, or at least is far, far and away more skilled than Romney is at simulating sincerity.

He was a Congressman for 4 years and a Senator for 12, so that even though he lost in 2006, he's not a hopeless retread like Gingrich or a half-Governor like Palin.

I saw his wife speak at the start of a caucus tonight on C-SPAN. She's not a bad-looking woman, but most of all she comes across as down-to-earth with no airs at all. And one might even be able to say the same thing about her husband -- there really is something a little salt-of-the-earth, working-class about him: just for one thing, even his first name, "Rick", has kind of become, in recent years, a joke amongst the cultural elite who have come to see it as declasse. And the tones of his voice have no hint of the elite about them.

Yes, he's a full-on, hard-core social conservative -- but he doesn't exactly sound that way - he doesn't come across crazy the way Bachmann does, even though he shares her social ideology.

And as Ed Schultz was pointing out, Santorum is willing to talk about manufacturing and manufacturing jobs (if not to offer a real solution for those issues.)

Santorum may just be electable. You heard it here first. In fact, for the first time tonight, and I never thought I'd think this, I'd rather Obama face Romney than Santorum in November. Suddenly, Romney looks a lot more beatable.