Fait Accompli?

Mr. Romney has about a 300 delegate lead over Mr. Santorum and is close to 50% of the total delegates that he needs to secure the nomination. What's more, if you look ahead to the schedule in April, things are looking pretty rosy for Mr. Romney.

In the month of April, there will be primaries/caucuses in Washington DC, Maryland, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, New York, and Pennsylvania. What's more, several of these contests are winner-take-all (either outright, or per each Congressional District). I would expect Mr. Romney to win almost all of these contests, with only Wisconsin and Pennsylvania offering an opportunity for Mr. Santorum to win (and I wouldn't bet large sums on those two states).

Mr. Santorum can console himself somewhat in that the geography favors him in May (Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Oregon, Nebraska, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas), but that might not matter after the beating that he will take in April.

Does that mean that Mr. Romney has already achieved fait accompli? No, but he's pretty close. After April, Mr. Romney will have essentially mathematically eliminated Mr. Santorum and Newt (should he still be in it). But it is still better than 50-50 that Mr. Romney will not reach 1144 bound delegates by the time the Utah delegates are assigned on June 26.

He will probably be very close. I'd be willing to bet that he will be somewhere between 1050 and 1100 delegates. If that is the case, the unbound party delegates will almost certainly unite behind him and push him over the top. There will be a lot of grumbling about that among the base (party elders picking the candidate) but everyone will fall in line as the general kicks in to gear.

If Mr. Santorum wishes to thwart this scenario and ensure that Mr. Romney does not secure the nomination on the first ballot of the convention, he probably needs to keep Mr. Romney at least 100 delegates away from the nomination. If he could somehow keep him below 1000 delegates, that would be gravy. Once the first ballot is over, almost all bound delegates are released and can vote however they choose to go (or are persuaded to go).

To accomplish this, Mr. Santorum will need to seize Mr. Romney's delegates in the caucuses where things are unsettled and bleed Mr. Romney in the proportional states. This is especially true in New York and California. Ideally, he would crush Mr. Romney in Texas as well.

I would not give high odds on this happening, but it does give an insight in to how it could happen. This gives an insight into the mindset of the Santorum camp as to how they think they will swing the nomination. Odder things have happened, but Occam's Razor...