This morning, The New York Times and CBS News, with Quinnipiac University, released their latest set of swing state polls, for Virginia, Wisconsin and Colorado. In the Old Dominion, Obama leads Romney by four points—49 to 45—and in the Badger State, he leads the Republican nominee by six, 51 to 45. These numbers are in line with previous surveys; in both states, Obama has led in ten of the last 11 polls, with an average lead of 2.8 points for Virginia, and 5.8 points for Wisconsin.

The GOP primary has been as long as a Wagner opera, but we might finally be at the curtain call. We’ve heard for ages that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee, but the other candidates and the party’s base have doggedly challenged this from the start. But this week, Romney collected some of the final puzzle pieces that he needs to quash his remaining opponents. He won a long-awaited endorsement from Florida Senator and Republican darling Marco Rubio yesterday, a move the potential vice-presidential candidate said he wouldn’t make until the race was over.

It’s official: Primary fatigue has set in. Today’s contest in Illinois is the 28^th primary or caucus so far, and just as the public reacted in groans after the 20^th debate, folks are starting to tune out this Herman Cain and Rick Perry-less contest. We have our fond memories, of course—the Iowa caucuses dished up an exciting and tense start to the race, and the late-night culmination of Super Tuesday had its moments. But now even the suspense that kept us glued to every word Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper uttered on primary nights is fading fast—the current Real Clear Politics average has Mitt Romney up by 10 percentage points in Illinois.

The rightward trek of Mitt Romney has been the Manifest Destiny of the GOP campaign. The more Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich hoard the evangelical and ultra-conservative vote, the more pundits and politicos say that Romney has no choice but to continue shuffling away from his past policy positions to make himself look more appetizing to “the base.” Last night’s third-place finishes in Alabama and Mississippi did nothing to change the conventional wisdom. Romney will clearly have to pick a vice-presidential nominee who satiates the hard right.

By now, Mitt Romney was supposed to have this thing wrapped up, but it turned out that he had to go down south and compete in Mississippi and Alabama. Romney called it an "away game," but he did his best, talkin' bout grits and saying "y'all." Shockingly, the Republicans of Dixie didn't quite buy it. But they did buy the guy from Pennsylvania. Which holds a lesson: cultural affinity isn't just about culture. It's good if you can talk the way a particular group of people do, and say sincerely that you eat what they eat, listen to the music they do, and share a common upbringing. That helped Mike Huckabee do so well in the South four years ago. But Rick Santorum is no Southerner, and yet he was the guy whom Republicans in the southernest of southern states identified with (and not, notably, Georgia's Newt Gingrich, although Newt was actually born and raised in Pennsylvania as well).

So what was that identification about? Put up against Romney, Santorum was more than enough of a Southern Republican. He may be Catholic while most of the people who voted for him were Protestant, but he's sure as hell no respect-other-faiths, don't-wear-your-religion-on-your-sleeve kind of guy, which Romney basically is. And Southern evangelical Republicans liked that, whatever they might think of the Pope. When Santorum explains his hatred of liberals, of gay people, of women who think they can have sex without being punished for it, and above all of Barack Obama, they could tell it was no act, no pandering. It's who he is, deep down in his soul, and he didn't have to drop his g's to make it hit home.

I may not be a great fan of the Republicans of Mississippi and Alabama, but I'll give them this: at least they displayed no evident interest in which Northerner did the best job of eating their food and speaking in their unique tongue.

Earlier this week, I postulated that Rick Santorum needs to firmly position himself as Romney's runner-up to put himself in line to be the party's pick in 2016. Salon's Alex Pareene followed the similar logic but took it a step further, declaring, "Now Rick Santorum is the 2016 GOP nomination front-runner."

But political scientist Jonathan Bernstein isn't so convinced by the myth that Republicans turn to the runner-up in the previous presidential cycle to select a new nominee. Bernstein writes:

All eyes were on the Last Frontier last night for the results of the crucial Alaska caucuses—widely regarded as make-or-break for, depending on whom you asked, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, or Newt Gingrich. After Romney managed to squeak past Rick Santorum late in the night with a three-point lead, there can no longer be a doubt that he has the nomination in the bag. No president since 1960 has ever won a general election without votes from Alaska, so Romney’s surprise win could truly be a game-changer.