Ron Nehring

With Rick Santorum's decision today to end his presidential bid, and Newt Gingrich quietly moving on to focus on the platform rather than winning the nomination, the Republican presidential nominating contest is over, and Mitt Romney has won.

Republicans have a big challenge ahead to define the election in terms of focusing on economic growth, bringing the nation's spiraling debt under control, and replacing Obamacare with common sense health care reform.

The Obama campaign will be interested in none of these things. The public is no longer buying a "blame George Bush" message, and the economy's dismal recovery gives the Administration little to take credit for. "It could have been worse" is a rationalization, not a campaign message.

With the President's approval ratings hovering near historic lows for much of the period since 2009, the Obama campaign has already shed the positive hope and change mantra in instead opted for an approach casting Republicans as the champions of "the 1%" and themselves as the champions of everyone else.

The complaining about the length of the Republican nominating contest continues in earnest.

One obvious question is this: should the nominating contest involve voters from every state, or should the country anoint voters of a privileged few to make the decision for the rest of us? To argue for a "short" process means to, in effect, advocate for either (1) a national primary day, where everyone votes at once; or (2) allowing voters of a few, early states to pick the nominees of both parties.

The consensus on the Republican National Committee following the 2008 election is that no one wanted national primary day. In 2008 we had come as close as we ever had in history to such a phenomenon when voters in 24 states cast their ballots on February 5. No one thought this was a good idea. As a result, the rules were changed to lengthen the process and give people more time, and allow voters in more states to participate.

In 2012, the process has gone on for a month longer than the new rules allow. The reason is not the process taking longer, but rather the race started earlier because Florida broke the rules and scheduled their primary for January instead of March. Michigan and Arizona also broke ranks, and the early states of New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada skipped ahead to maintain their early position.

We have a process going on for a month longer than designed not because the rules were followed, but because the rules were broken.

Those who don't like the new process should follow their complaints with constructive suggestions about what they feel should replace the current system. Everyone can agree the process can be improved. That's not the issue. The real conversation gets going when we talk about alternative solutions.