Super Duper Tuesday: The Republican Side

At this point, Huckabee is doing serious damage to Romney. Romney needs the Huckster out fast, like yesterday. Huckabee staying in keeps McCain's campaign on top. Here's Romney's top strategist:

The coalitions that John McCain assembled in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida have been strikingly similar—and are strikingly tenuous. Public polling shows McCain ahead in many states, but we are now in a two-man race and a few points’ movement among conservatives is all that’s needed to tip the scales in favor of Gov. Romney. In all three states where he was victorious, McCain’s margin of victory rested on moderates, self identified independents, and voters who disapprove of the Bush administration. None of these groups is a majority of the Republican electorate. In fact, every GOP primary this year has been at least 55% conservative, 61% Republican, and 50% supportive of the Bush administration— explaining why McCain has failed to win more than 36% of the vote in any of them.

Huckabee might be thinking of being chosen McCain's running-mate. I can't believe I haven't thought of this one before; it's so appallingly simple, and I feel incredibly stupid. Huckabee is young (53 in August), so a shot at being Veep is perfect for him. It is the natural endpoint of the Huckster--McCain lovefest/alliance. And since the Republicans are probably going down in the general anyway, Huckabee won't be the loser at the top of the ticket, but he'll have a platform to work from for the rest of the year.

National Review has this:

In the Romney pile, we’ll probably have about five to seven wins, and the delegates most of Massachusetts, all of Utah, all of Montana, most of Colorado, all of Missouri, and if that poll is correct, all of Delaware, and perhaps most of North Dakota's. And he’ll get some of California’s. I put him at about 200 to 250 delegates.

In the Huckabee pile, we’ll have Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, and maybe he’ll get some of California’s. I put him around 200.

In the McCain pile, we’ll have all of Arizona, all of New York, all of New Jersey, all of Connecticut, probably the largest chunk of California’s, probably most of Minnesota's, probably majorities in Oklahoma and West Virginia.I put him around somewhere north of 400 delegates.

Alaska may go for Ron Paul, and he may get a majority of their 29 delegates.

That would put things at about McCain at 500+ (needing 1,191 to be the nominee), Romney at 325, Huckabee at 230 or so.

Marc Ambinder has this:

[Romney's] strategy eschews big states and concentrates on smaller states where the delegate selection processes favor conservatives. They include Colorado, a caucus state, West Virginia, Alaska (which is why Romney mentioned McCain's support for ANWR drilling last night), and Oklahoma and Georgia, two states where delegates can be extracted from congressional districts.

The goal is to minimize the delegate gulf between McCain and Romney headed out of Feb 5 and give Romney a pretext to continue to campaign if McCain suddenly falters.