The Republican Party isn’t much of a locus of love at the moment. Rick Santorum, who, over the months of the primary race, spent a good deal of time with Mitt Romney, finally brought himself to endorse him—in an e-mail sent to supporters in the middle of the night, without anything that could be mistaken for a hug. Santorum raised the question of endorsement on the third paragraph of the letter, but didn’t get around to actually doing it until the thirteenth. In between, he thanks his supporters for their “counsel” on the matter, suggesting that it had been a pretty tough call. He is more passionate about getting Romney to hire his people (“As it is often said, ‘personnel is policy’ ”) than he is about Romney. Why is he endorsing him? Because Romney won, and maybe can win again:

Above all else, we both agree that President Obama must be defeated. The task will not be easy. It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious. Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime.

The nicest thing Santorum had to say about Romney had to do not with his strength but his weakness, and ultimate malleability. As the A.P. noted in its report on the announcement, Santorum once said of him, “Pick any other Republican in the country. He is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.” That, to Santorum’s mind, is because the biggest issue is Obamacare, and Romneycare makes it harder to bash. But in his e-mail Monday night Santorum, after repeating those “concerns” about health-care reform, said that “I have no doubt if elected he will work with a Republican Congress to repeal it”—that Mitt could be led, even if he couldn’t lead.

Santorum doesn’t have a hotel to promote, as Donald Trump did in staging an announcement for his endorsement of Romney, but this move was still conspicuous for being done in the dark. No doubt the two will appear onstage together before too long; there might even be professions of affection. But Santorum has made sure that that won’t be an event breaking the news of a true conversion. It will be just another emotionally clumsy moment in the Romney campaign.

What about those who love politics, and are looking for remaining intra-Republican action? There’s the Vice-Presidential choice, of course, and there’s Ron Paul. He is running for President. And he won’t stop, maybe not ever, but certainly not because of some small thing like the iron logic of delegate math. From his perspective, why should he? There is nothing truly logical in the way the Republican (or Democratic) Party assigns many of its delegates. There appears to be a substantial overlap between those able to master Paul’s arguments about the Fed and those who can make sense of the party rules in each state: Paul has been quietly netting delegates, like some electoral lepidopterist. His supporters out-managed those of Romney at the Nevada and Maine state conventions, where the delegates were formally chosen, and more than expected will be going to the convention—in some cases, bound to vote for Romney at least once, but, as the L.A. Times noted, able to cheer for anyone they like, and loudly. There is no real way Paul can get the nomination (see Ryan Lizza, Andrew Prokop, and Joshua Putnam on that); Romney has over eight hundred delegates, and Paul is just about to break a hundred—though, again, there is some fluttering in these numbers. Paul surely could make it a more interesting few days in Tampa. What would it take for him and his delegates to be friendly to Mitt? Maybe a good speaking spot, for him or for Senator Rand Paul, his son. Or maybe he just wants some love.

Photograph by Lauren Lancaster.