On Feb. 7, thousands of new faces showed up at Minnesota Republican caucuses to support Rick Santorum.

That proved to be the single-biggest night of Santorum’s campaign for the Republican nomination for president. He won in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri.

His Minnesota showing was impressive. He ended up with 45 percent of the vote, finishing 18 points ahead of runner-up Ron Paul. Mitt Romney was a dismal third, finishing with just 17 percent of the vote.

Now, with word that Santorum is done, what happens to all those Santorum supporters? Will they be around to give support to Republican candidates up and down the ticket through the summer and into November?

Not surprisingly, the party’s chairman, Pat Shortridge — who already has his hands full of issues in attempting to put back together a party that has been leveled by financial problems and a nasty scandal — quickly tried to make sure the Santorum supporters stick with the party in the coming months.

Shortly after Santorum announced his campaign was over, Shortridge issued a statement:

“Rick Santorum has made the difficult but honorable decision today to end his campaign and, as he has always done, put his family first.

“The tens of thousands of Minnesota Republicans who supported Rick on caucus night are no doubt disappointed by today’s news. But, I know his supporters will join him in working for our Republican presidential nominee and fighting for the things that make America special.

“Rick Santorum has worked tirelessly throughout the campaign and has brought critical issues to the forefront. He will be a great asset to our presidential nominee, and we look forward to working with him to defeat President Obama in November.”

What will Santorum supporters do?

But will Santorum supporters actually rally ’round the Republican banner? Notice, in his statement, Shortridge didn’t even mention that “our presidential nominee” will be Romney. That’s not a candidate who inspired confidence among the people who caucused.

In an email, Marianne Stebbins, who heads the Ron Paul campaign in Minnesota, pointed out that anybody-but-Romney has been the choice of so many Republicans, both in Minnesota and nationally.

“Many Santorum supporters had conscientious objections to Romney’s record and policies,” she wrote in response to questions that were emailed to her. “They had alternately supported [Michele] Bachmann, [Herman] Cain, [Rick] Perry, [Newt] Gingrich and finally Santorum in hopes of finding anyone but Romney.

“That said, some will jump on board with Romney, others will stay home, and we hope to welcome a significant number of them to join the voices of Ron Paul’s supporters to say we believe in the principles of smaller government and liberty and we still have a choice.”

GOP leaders on board with Romney

Romney isn’t without strengths in Minnesota.

Leading up to those Feb. 7 caucuses, he did have the support of many traditional GOP leaders.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty has headed the Romney campaign in Minnesota, and House Speaker Kurt Zellers and House Majority Leader Matt Dean also endorsed Romney.

But in recent years, the Republican rank and file hasn’t exactly lined up behind traditional leaders.

This was a party that, following the 2010 elections, banned many longtime Republican leaders from being active in the party through this convention and election cycle.

Former Govs. Arne Carlson and Al Quie and former U.S. Sen. Dave Durenberger were on a long list of former Republican office holders and supporters who were told they weren’t wanted because they supported Independence Party candidate Tom Horner, not GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, in the 2010 election.

That means you’ve got much of the old Republican Party leadership banned, and now you’ve got much of the new base, for the moment at least, feeling stranded.

Mixed into this dilemma is the reality that the state party can’t even pay the rent on its offices.

State GOP's money problems

The depth of the party’s financial woes were revealed in an internal party memo that was leaked to Politico: $2 million owed to creditors, $1.23 million owed to debtors and $700,000 owed in unpaid legal fees that came as a price of the recount between Emmer and Gov. Mark Dayton.

In a statement, Shortridge tried to paint as bright a financial picture as he could: “I will say that we’re in better shape than we were three months ago, not as good as we’ll be three months from now. We’re making progress and we’ll be an asset to our candidates in November.”

Perhaps the end of the Santorum campaign and the certainty that Romney will be at the top of the ticket will bring back some of the old GOP money from more moderate times.

But Carlson doubts that. He believes that the party has a whole lot more explaining to do before many sit down to write out the checks so desperately needed.

In an interview Tuesday, the former governor, who has been on the outs with the state party for years, expressed surprise and disappointment that neither the press nor law enforcement officials have pushed the GOP harder for answers on where party money went in the last couple of years.

“There was public solicitation of money, and apparently that money was misspent and yet there has been no thorough investigation,” Carlson said. “When you raise money from the public, the public has a right to know how that money was used. I guarantee you, if this was the American Cancer Society we were talking about, and not the state Republican party, there would be investigations.”

There is an ongoing investigation by the state campaign finance board.

But Carlson said “a forensic audit” is needed, an audit that “would follow the dots” until auditors could discover where money from entries not listed on the party’s books ended up being spent.

“In any system where you have reasonable controls,” Carlson said, “you do not allow one person to make withdrawals. Oh, if you have a sick person, a party activist, and you want to send flowers. That’s not a problem. But what sort of board would allow $10,000 to be spent without asking questions.  It’s hard to believe one person [former party chairman Tony Sutton] caused all these problems.”

Until all questions are answered, Carlson said, he suspects the crucial large donors will be reluctant to write checks.

It should be noted that Carlson believes the Obama administration’s failure to act boldly on the national debt could bail out Romney and the Republicans nationally.

But in Minnesota, he believes the party’s problems are immense: The party’s right rejected Romney,  moderates don’t feel welcome, and the party books are written in red ink.

 “Would you give them [the state GOP] $10 right now?” he asked.