Like other politicians before him, Rick Santorum announced that he is "suspending" his campaign.

It's a euphemism often employed by modern political candidates. They rarely explicitly say what they are actually doing -- "dropping out," "getting out," "quitting," saying, "Adios, amigo."

They're rarely that forthright, though Santorum came closer than most. "This presidential race is over for me," he said.

But why has this specific "suspend" language become so popular -- and what does it mean?

It's a political distinction rather than a legal one, said Michael Toner, a prominent Republican election lawyer and former Federal Election Commission chairman.

"It gives you more flexibility politically" and "political cover to get back in the race," if a candidate chooses to do so, Toner said. "It gives you more wiggle room."

By not officially terminating a campaign, a candidate can continue to raise money to retire debt. A candidate would not be allowed to "terminate" their campaign -- in the technical sense with the FEC -- unless they paid off their obligations and debts.

By point of fact, Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign has never been terminated, because of outstanding debts and obligations.

She, too, "suspended" her campaign.

There is nothing a candidate would file with the FEC to say they are "suspending" their campaign, Toner said, and it would take months for them to officially "terminate" it, because of those debts and obligations.

A candidate can also remain on ballots for which he has already qualified, but it can depend on state law, another election lawyer said.

Hypothetically, a candidate would also continue to be eligible for public financing -- if he applied for it. It's unlikely that Santorum, like Cain before him, applied for those funds, as he made no public comments about it.

It's also possible that a secretary of state could interpret Santorum's announcement as withdrawing from the race and that he is no longer to be included on a ballot. There are a slew of states in May, where he is expected to do well. More likely, however, Santorum's name would remain on whatever ballots he's already on.

 Cleta Mitchell, another GOP election lawyer who works with candidates and committees, said of Cain's campaign, for example, "I think this particular campaign has used that term as a 'soft landing' exit rather than the more dramatic statement of 'terminating.'

"There was a point in time when presidential candidates accepting federal matching funds would use the term 'suspend,' so they could still receive their federal matching funds after their campaigns had ended," she continued, adding, "I think it is essentially in this instance a euphemism for ending his campaign and had no legal impact."

A version of this report was originally posted in December 2011 after Herman Cain "suspended" his campaign.

Rick Santorum met with several conservative leaders at home in Virginia, sources close to the Santorum campaign confirms to NBC News.

One of the major goals -- how to get Newt Gingrich out of the race and get his delegates to line up behind Santorum instead.

The meeting, the source said, was “called by conservative leaders to see how to get everyone to coalesce around Rick. Gingrich is a big part of that … that’s a huge part of it.”

Santorum spokeswoman Alic Stewart first confirmed the news on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports and said the goal of the meeting, called by the conservatives leaders, was stopping Mitt Romney.

"What I can say is we were approached by conservative leaders – a group of conservative leaders - who say now is the time for conservatives to rally together, get behind the right person that is going to be able to stop Mitt Romney," Stewart said. "That’s what the conservatives need to do."

The conservative leaders are trying to “find a way to stop Mitt Romney,” the source said. Santorum and Gingrich have “met a couple times,” but there’s no indication Gingrich would get out at this point or endorse.

The Gingrich campaign confirmed to NBC's Alex Moe that Santorum and Gingrich had met over the last couple of weeks, but, stressed that there is no chance Gingrich will exit the race and encourage his delegates to vote for Santorum.

Santorum "should have thought about that during the primaries," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told Moe, "and Newt is not dropping out and handing him our delegates."

He added, "Newt has not agreed to any alliances, and he is going to continue to move forward with his candidacy, and it is Sen. Santorum's decision alone if he wants to continue his candidacy."

There was no discussion -- or encouragement -- at the meeting today of Santorum to drop out, the source said. And talk of Santorum rethinking before Pennsylvania is silly, the source said.

“We’re going to Pennsylvania,” the source insisted. “He’s home for Easter.”

Politico first reported of a meeting with conservatives today.

This morning we asked if Rick Santorum had gone too far by saying it would be better to vote for Barack Obama than an Etch A Sketch Republican like Mitt Romney.

Well, Santorum has now tried to walk back the comment -- and he lashes out at the Romney campaign, blaming it for causing the dust up.

"I would never vote for Barack Obama over any Republican and to suggest otherwise is preposterous,” Santorum said in a statement released by his campaign. “This is just another attempt by the Romney Campaign to distort and distract the media and voters from the unshakeable fact that many of Romney's policies mirror Barack Obama's. I was simply making the point that there is a huge enthusiasm gap around Mitt Romney and it's easy to see why - Romney has sided with Obama on healthcare mandates, cap-and-trade, and the Wall Street bailouts. Voters have to be excited enough to actually go vote, and my campaign's movement to restore freedom is exciting this nation. If this election is about Obama versus the Obama-Lite candidate, we have a tough time rallying this nation. It's time for bold vision, bold reforms and bold contrasts. This election is about more than Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or Rick Santorum - this campaign is about freedom and I will fight to restore your freedoms." 

But it was Santorum who said yesterday, "You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”

Newt Gingrich and Romney pounced, with Gingrich saying any of the Republicans running would be better than Obama, and Romney calling Santorum “desperate” and frustrated.

"I want to start with something Rick said tonight that I frankly was very surprised that he said and that I hope he's taking back,” Gingrich said, adding, “I may have some very substantial disagreements with Gov. Romney. There is no doubt in my mind that if the choice was Gov. Romney or Barack Obama, we would have no choice,” Gingrich said. “The danger of Obama is so great that I would hope that every candidate running -- Ron Paul, Gov. Romney and Sen. Santorum – that we would all agree that whoever becomes the Republican nominee, we have one common goal and that is to defeat Barack Obama.”

On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show this morning, Romney said of Santorum, “Desperate polls call for desperate pols.”

He added, “I know that there are a lot of people across the country that are saying we need to consolidate behind the guy who has now weathered, I think there are 38 different contests we've had, if you include all the little islands as well. … I'm sure that the Senator's hearing from some of those people saying hey, let's get going, let's move on and get our nominee ready to go against President Obama. and perhaps he's striking out with frustration from those kind of questions.”

And he went further, accusing Santorum of vanity.

“I'm afraid that Rick increasingly thinks this race is about him,” Romney said. “It's not about him. It's not about me. It's not about a personality. It's about the country. And I'm really disappointed in Rick's statement. Obviously, he endorsed me three years ago when I was running for president. He had no problem calling me a real conservative, a solid conservative. But now that he's in the race, it has become all about Rick.”

NBC's Alex Moe

Newt Gingrich holding a supporter's Etch A Sketch at an event in Houma, La., Thursday.

That was so yesterday.

But not for Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Both candidates, trying to upend front runner Mitt Romney, took to the trail today once again carrying Etch A Sketches.

First it was Santorum this morning, who dove head first again into the Romney campaign gaffe likening its campaign and candidate to the toy that can just be shaken up, erased, and redrawn once the fall campaign begins.

NBC's John Boxley reports that Santorum held up an Etch A Sketch at his first event in San Antonio today before USAA, the military home and life insurance company.

"Someone that doesn't have his policies on an Etch A Sketch," Santorum said. The crowd laughed.

NBC's Alex Moe reports that Newt Gingrich at his event today in Houma, La., held up a supporter's pink Etch A Sketch, microphone in hand.

In late September, while the political world was speculating about whether Chris Christie might jump into the GOP race and buzzing about First Michelle Obama shopping incognito at Target, Rick Santorum was quietly doing something of his own -- making money.

On Sept. 29 and 30, while he was mired in single digits in the polls and no one was giving him a chance to win the nomination, Santorum went and made $18,200 in two speeches, according to an amendment to his personal financial disclosure released today.

Santorum was paid $9,100 apiece speaking through the conservative Young America’s Foundation before the Institute of Management Accountants and before the Family Institute of Connecticut.

A look back at Santorum’s schedule for those two days shows no public events or campaigning.

In 2007, Mike Huckabee broke with the tradition of suspending giving paid speeches during campaigns when he hopped off the trail for several then-undisclosed speeches. He eventually lost the nomination, but got his own television show.

Santorum made between $1.4 and $1.6 million in the year-and-a-half reporting period before he launched his bid for president, according to his financial disclosure. But, on the trail, like Huckabee, he has lamented the personal financial cost of running for office.

As Rick Santorum tries to gain ground on Mitt Romney in the race for Republican delegates, Santorum’s late start in states other than Iowa continues to make it hard for him to compete for every potential delegate.

Santorum will not compete for delegates in four of Illinois’ 18 congressional districts, meaning he is only eligible to win 44 of the state’s 54 delegates at stake tonight.

But it could have been even worse.

Copies of Santorum delegate petitions provided to NBC News by the Illinois State Board of Elections also show that in 10 other districts, Santorum did not have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. (In Illinois, a GOP candidate needs three people -- in most districts -- willing to be a delegate, plus 600 signatures to get on the ballot.)

The only way, however, for a candidate to be deemed ineligible is for a campaign to contest the signatures. In other words, the state is not going to check them unless a campaign officially asks it to do so.

The Romney campaign initially did challenge Santorum’s petitions in January, but dropped it after the Santorum campaign agreed to drop similar contests of Romney delegates, according to Jon Zahm, Santorum’s Illinois state director.

Santorum's campaign said it challenged the Romney delegates, because the petitions were notarized in Massachusetts, according to Zahm. (It's unclear, however, if that's the case or if notarizing out of state would have made the petitions invalid.)

While candidates run in a non-binding statewide primary in Illinois, the delegates run individually in congressional districts with their pledged presidential candidate printed next to their name. According to Illinois election law, each delegate must submit a petition to the State Board of Elections with at least 600 signatures in order to run.

The copies of Santorum’s petitions reveal he had fewer than 600 signatures in districts one, two, three, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, and 18. In seven of those districts, the petitions had fewer than half the required signatures.

Illinois is not the first state where a missed filing deadline has caused Santorum to lose out on delegates. On Super Tuesday, the Santorum campaign failed to meet filing deadlines in Ohio and Virginia causing the former Pennsylvania senator to forego competing for at least 55 delegates. Early next month, Santorum also failed to get on the ballot in the District of Columbia, where he will forego another 16 delegates in the district’s April 3 primary.

The delegate problems come in the context of a campaign where Santorum already faces a large delegate deficit. Based on delegates allotted by NBC News, Mitt Romney has 444 delegates, more than twice Santorum’s count of 183. (The state of Wyoming today switched one more delegate from Santorum to Romney.)

Santorum would have to significantly outperform his results so far in order to catch Romney and even approach getting the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Ballot difficulties

It is not easy to meet ballot access requirements in many states, and Illinois is only the latest example the Santorum campaign has seen of getting a late start in launching a national campaign. 

The Santorum campaign did not start its Illinois effort in earnest until late December, according to Zahm, and had only a couple of weeks to get on the state’s primary ballot. In fact, given the late start and lack of a large paid staff in Illinois, it is a testament to Santorum’s volunteers in the state that he is on the ballot at all.

“We started Dec. 23rd,” says Zahm. “We had a two-week campaign to get on the ballot.”

From there, the Santorum campaign faced significant difficulty. With candidates’ delegates running as individuals in each congressional district, the Santorum campaign faced an uphill battle gathering enough signatures for their slates of delegates in such a short amount of time.

In other words, it’s not enough getting the candidate on the statewide ballot; the campaign had to work hard to identify people who would run as delegates and then get hundreds of Illinois Republicans to sign their petitions.

Santorum did not even submit delegate slates, any signatures at all, in the fourth, fifth, and seventh congressional districts -- and a human error resulted in the campaign failing to get on the ballot in the state’s 13th district as well.

As campaign volunteers rushed to get all of the petitions submitted to the State Board of Elections by the 5:00 pm CT deadline on Friday, Jan. 5, volunteers left one of the petition envelopes unopened, and it was mistakenly thrown away. By the time the campaign tried to rectify the mistake with the elections office, the deadline had already passed and Santorum delegates could not get on the ballot.

Contested delegates

Suspecting the Santorum campaign did not have enough signatures, the Romney campaign challenged the petitions of Santorum delegates in the 10 congressional districts where copies of the petitions show Santorum did not, in fact, have enough signatures.

In response, Zahm counter-challenged and filed contests against the Romney delegates, arguing the Romney delegate petitions were notarized by a notary in Massachusetts, which made the petitions invalid. Ultimately, both sides dropped their contests.

“I let the Romney people know I was going after them on that,” Zahm said. “They eventually came to me and asked me to withdraw that complaint as long as they withdrew theirs.”

Romney state chairman Dan Rutherford, also Illinois treasurer, was not available to comment, but Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul simply said the campaign decided not to force Santorum’s delegates off the ballot.

“Senator Santorum outright failed to qualify to be on the ballot in four congressional districts in Illinois,” said Saul in an email to NBC News. “However, in other districts where he fell short, it would have been incumbent on us or another campaign to force him off the ballot.  We decided against doing that.”

Saul blamed Santorum’s ballot problems on his own campaign.

“All of Sen. Santorum’s ballot-access problems have been a result of his own organizational failures,” Saul continued.

Santorum’s path ahead
The Santorum campaign acknowledges it will be difficult for any campaign to get to 1,144 delegates with four candidates in the race but remains confident they can still make inroads in the delegate race. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Santorum adviser John Yob, brought on by the campaign as a delegate strategist, said there is a path for the former Pennsylvania senator to get to 1,144.

According to Yob, the campaign rests its delegate strategy on over-performing in May contests like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas and then picking up delegates in states like Iowa and Minnesota, which held caucuses earlier, but do not actually bind delegates until county and state conventions in April and May.

As for the organizational deficiencies, Santorum himself said the campaign struggled with the arcane rules of states with early deadlines, but that the organization now is in good shape.

“It’s amazing that we’re on the ballots we are – given how difficult these rules are from state to state and how different they are and the fact that we used volunteers to get this done in December,” Santorum contended on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday. “Since that time, of course, we’ve been fine. We’re getting on the ballots and, of course, as you’ve seen, our organization is pretty darn good.”

As for tonight’s primary in Illinois, Zahm thinks Santorum can still make a good showing despite starting at an initial delegate disadvantage.

“There’s 14 districts we’re competing in,” Zahm said. “My campaign plan calls for winning 10 of them. If we win 10, we’ll win 10 out of 18 and we’ll have a majority.”

Pro-Rick Santorum Super PAC, Red White and Blue fund, released a scathing new TV ad in Louisiana attacking President Obama’s record on energy.

“Under Barack Obama, America is spending $314 Billion a year on foreign oil funding radicals with bad intentions, causing pump prices to rise drastically,” the narrator says.

The narrator continues by detailing Santorum’s plan: “Develop domestic resources, utilize natural gas and power generation and transportation, open drilling and build pipelines to lower costs, create jobs, secure jobs.”

The $250,000 ad buy comes at the heels of a new WWL-TV poll, giving Rick Santorum a small lead in the Louisiana GOP presidential race at 25%, followed by Mitt Romney at 21%, Newt Gingrich at 20% and Ron Paul at 6%.