Romney sails to easy win in Nevada caucus

Coming up next: 3 states together: Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. HT reports.

Mitt Romney won the Nevada Republican caucus Saturday night, making it a second win in a row, picking up the crucial state of Florida last week.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were in a close fight for the second position till late in the night, Rick Santorum was fourth and last. He, in fact, had moved on to other states giving up on Nevada.

Romney was expected to win in Nevada, with its large number of people of the Mormon faith, like him. He had won Nevada in 2008 too.

This time, he said in victory speech, he will take the Nevada state straight to the White House; he lost the 2008 nomination race to John McCain.

The Republican nominations runs on two legs: primaries and caususes. In primaries, party members queue and vote as in a general election. In caucuses, party member meet in very small numbers, discuss, listen to people pitching their candidates and then vote.

Romney stuck to his strategy of setting himself up as the Republican candidate who can beat President Barack Obama, looking straight past his rivals Gingrich, Paul and

Santorum. That’s been his strategy whenever he has won.

He gets back into the ring with his Republican rivals only when he is either trailing or lost. He has also been winning those brawls lately. Romney has now won three of the five primaries — New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada. Santorum won Iowa and Gingrich picked up South Carolina. Next in the race are three states together, next Tuesday: Colorado (caucus), Minnesota (caucus) and Missouri (primary).