“We need a candidate who’s going to be a fighter for freedom. Who’s going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race. I don’t care what the unemployment rate’s going to be. Doesn’t matter to me.” – Rick Santorum, March, 2012

“In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.” – Rick Santorum, 2003

“Higher income people don’t have to pay taxes if they don’t want to.” – Rick Santorum, March, 2012

I’m extremely disappointed and deeply saddened to inform you that the man who uttered these brilliant words — former Pennsylvania senator and our dear Penn State alumnus Rick Santorum — pulled out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday afternoon. After a hard-fought campaign, he decided that he was tired of being behind Mitt Romney and constantly coming in number two (in most national polls).

Santorum had a very strong campaign platform and a respectable position on the issues, including his anti-gay marriage stance, backed by his belief that a child would be better off with an imprisoned father than lesbian parents, or his fight against the evils of contraception, or his queasiness at the thought of separation of church and state, or his disbelief that a “black man” would decide whether or not a fetus is a person, or his valiant war on the pornography industry, or his insistence that food stamps should be cut because those using them have high obesity rates, or even his opinion that impregnated female rape victims should just “make the best” of their situation.

I mean, it’s truly a miracle that the voters thought Mitt Romney would be better fit to run the United States than the intellectual favorite Rick Santorum. Then again, making it this far was a miracle in the first place. “Miracle after miracle, this race was as improbable as any race that you will ever see for president,” he said in his concession speech on Tuesday. “We were winning in a very different way because we were touching hearts, we were raising issues that frankly people didn’t want to be raised.”

Indeed, Senator Santorum. Game…over.