Karl Rove: Santorum a "Desperate Candidate"

Count Karl Rove among those who think the GOP nominating contest is all but done.

The former George W. Bush adviser penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday that declares that Mitt Romney's ultimate nomination has become "clear" and that Rick Santorum's last-ditch effort to derail the inevitable "won't work."

"Most political contests have an inflection point where the outcome becomes clear," Rove wrote. "Tuesday was such a moment for the GOP presidential sweepstakes."

The former White House chief of staff (and current Fox News contributor) goes on to detail what he says is Santorum's five-part plan to prevent Romney from receiving his party's nomination, and then makes the case for why such a plan is destined to fail.

As for Santorum's argument that a contested convention would help fire up Republicans? "That's the argument of a desperate candidate," Rove writes. "More and more Republicans think such a bloodletting would severely set back the cause of defeating Barack Obama."

You can read the full ope-d here. (It ran under the headline "Rove: It's Almost Over For Santorum," although, fwiw, op-ed writers often don't get to pick their headlines.)

In other bad news for Santorum: a new PPP poll released Wednesday shows Romney taking the lead in Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania.

With three weeks to go, Romney leads 42 percent to 37 in the Keystone State. And he's gaining momentum with key groups of voters who have been notoriously lukewarm on a Romney nomination: Evangelicals and Tea Party supporters. Compared to a month ago, Romney has narrowed Santorum's lead with Evangelical voters from 37 points to 10 points. Likewise, Santorum's 32 point lead with Tea Party voters is now only 6. "Very conservative" voters favor Santorum by just 11 points, compared to a previous 51-point lead.