Can you paste the statistics that you're referencing? I don't even understand what you're saying. No Republican primary candidate who had a gender gap bigger than another Republican primary candidate's gender gap went on to win a general election? So you're saying they did win the primary though? Be honest, you just pulled that made-up stat out of your hind quarters.
There's also no way to say that because Santorum wins MI that he will beat Obama. That's just one heck of a huge leap that you cannot justify making, in part because no one can predict how the general election will turn out, because it's 9 MONTHS AWAY. We still haven't even figured out how the elections 3 DAYS AWAY from now will turn out!
I would not look at polls or primary results at all to predict November. I would look at the overall qualities of the candidate and compare them to past candidates who've won or lost on a much more subjective level, because that is all that can work at this stage. At this stage the educated mind of one analyst is going to mean far more than the polls of 1,000 people's mushy minds who aren't paying attention to politics much at all. You're free to make your case why Santorum would win in the general election on that basis, but I won't care about what the polling data says on that front until after the conventions and at least one presidential debate.
Anyway, I'm not trying to convince the Santo-bots of anything here, just trying to air out the stinky funk in the spin room for the benefit of the rest of the viewing audience.
Before impugning integrity, why the heck don’t you check Gallup and the slew of articles and commentaries on Gingrich’s unbridgeable gender gap?
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/gingrich-destroyed-by-gender-gap/
Bush beat Gore and Kerry with 10-12 points gender gap.
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/research/topics/documents/GenderGapAdvisory04.pdf
A 25-point gender gap in FL and now a 39-point gender gap in the recent Gallup is of historic proportions and this puts Gingrich completely and irrevocably out of contention regardless of what happens on Tuesday.