Ego Sum

I still hear far too many apparently Fox News/Conservative establishment types stating that Mitt Romney is failing to make the case for Republicans. Let's keep in mind that by this time during the 2008 cycle it was essentially a two or three man race. Right now we have a one man, three ego race.

Sorry, more numbers to throw at you:

Mitt Romney has been nothing if he hasn't been consistent in his primary performance. To date he has garnered 55% of the delegates awarded. He only has to win 45% of the remaining to win the nomination. He is the only one of the candidates who doesn't have to improve markedly his performance in order to outright win the nomination. Mr. Santorum would need a turnaround from 27% to 69% and it only gets worse or really bad for Messrs Gingrich and Paul.

In fact, by 24 April, it will most likely become statistically impossible for Ron Paul to win 1144 delegates. His weak performance curve will crash abruptly into his steep need-to-perform-better curve and he will run out of room. His graphs just aren't bending that way and neither are those of anyone else.

Sometime on 8 May, at the current rate, Gingrich meets his unfortunate confluence of graphs.

If we assume (even though, it is very unlikely) that Mr. Paul were to drop out after 24 April and Mr Gingrich after 8 May; And, that all of their vote share were then to go to Mr. Santorum, Mitt Romney still wins the nomination sometime on 5 June (sorry Utah, all your relevance are belong to us.)

Let's look specifically at some of the big-ticket races yet to take place:
Wisconsin - Winner take all - Romney holding a big lead in the polls
Texas - Proportional - Santorum holding a slim lead in the polls with Romney closing
New York - Combination of proportional and winner take all with Romney holding a comfortable lead
California - Winner take all with Romney holding a comfortable lead

I don't know how to spell it out more clearly.

Of course, Mr. Romney could do the selfless thing and drop out for the good of the party and the country as he did last time when he was in second place. As ridiculous as that sounds, he appears to be the only one in the race whose ego isn't forcing him to continue against all better judgment.