Santorum distances himself from Gingrich narrative

Rick Santorum swept the Republican vote in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado on Tuesday night, a move that puts him in contention to be the not-Mitt Romney candidate, a position Newt Gingrich has openly campaigned to get.

But Santorum said that he isn't looking to be the anti-Romney.

"I don't claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney; I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama," he tweeted.

Gingrich, who moved his campaign to Ohio ahead of the votes, said Tuesday that if Romney didn't win, it would break Romney's "inevitability" argument.

"And I think the big story coming out tonight is going to be that it's very hard for the elite media to portray Gov. Romney as the inevitable nominee after tonight is over," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "So I think after tonight, you will see, this is a wide-open race and you are going to see a lot of people out there campaigning."

Gingrich also pledged again to stay in the race until the GOP convention this summer.

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