Santorum left the race due to lack of funds

Money talks in politics and that is especially true on the presidential campaign trail where the dollars flow like a fire hydrant covering expenses all across the country. Following the Wisconsin loss, Santorum says the donations dried up and they wanted to avoid going into deep debt to carry on.

Report from CBS News:

When Rick Santorum ended his presidential bid on Tuesday, he spoke about the illness of his three-year-old daughter, Bella, and expressed a desire to spend more time with her as a parent. But on Thursday, the former Pennsylvania senator suggested the decision largely came down instead to a simple reality: He was out of cold, hard cash.
After losing Wisconsin’s April 3 primary to rival Mitt Romney by seven points – a contest, Santorum said, that his campaign viewed as necessary to win in order to do well in his home state of Pennsylvania – his fundraising dried up.

“For the first time the campaign had a debt, the debt was from my perspective a little bit more substantial than I was comfortable with. And I’ll be honest with you, Tony, in the last week after Wisconsin we basically raised almost no money,” Santorum told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a radio interview, his first since announcing he was ending his bid. “We had solicitations going out and people were just emailing back saying the race is over and you gotta join the crew and there were others who would say not but it was a very, very small trickle of funds that were coming in.”

Looking ahead to the Pennsylvania primary on April 24, Santorum said, he felt like his campaign wouldn’t be able to spend even “a penny” on advertising to counter Romney’s planned multi-million dollar advertising blitz.

Essentially the Romney money-machine was intimidating enough to keep Santorum from attempting a shoestring campaign in Pennsylvania. Fearing a slaughter on the airwaves, Santorum did the next logical thing which was to bow out before the ship hits the bottom. Gingrich hit this point many weeks ago in terms of campaign debt yet he has vowed to remain in the race until Romney hits 1,144 delegates. Ron Paul is the only other candidate with the money to carry on and will also likely continue in the race until Romney hits the delegate mark.