Politico says that Republicans are claiming that their party rigged the primaries so Mitt Romney could win:

The list of specific grievances ranges from issues that even the party acknowledges are legitimate, to those that they dismiss as desperate fixations from Romney’s flailing rivals.

For example, the committee agrees that some states that went for Romney jumped the line in the primary schedule, a violation of party rules. But RNC defenders shrug off other complaints, like that they undercut Santorum and Gingrich by formatting a delegate tracking list to pad Romney’s tally, by forming a fundraising alliance this week with Romney and by highlighting a rule that would block an unlikely path to the nomination for Gingrich.

And it’s possible they’ll be other clashes in the coming weeks, with the RNC signaling Thursday its opposition to a push by Santorum backers in Texas to alter the rules surrounding that state’s May 29 primary to help the former Pennsylvania Senator.

I mean, of course the primary was rigged. The primaries are always rigged. This is not a surprise. Republican leadership knows that a Santorum candidacy in the general election would sink the party for at least eight years. I do think that there was a clear path for Santorum to seize the candidacy, and if he had acted differently over two weeks in February, he could be on top right now. The thing is, if you're smart enough, you can accept the fact that the game is rigged, and then manipulate the rigged game to work in your favor. The Obama campaign managed it in 2008. Neither Gingrich nor Santorum (or Ron Paul) were smart enough to do it this year.