I am sure we all know the story of the three little pigs, who built three different houses out of different materials. I also think we all would have assumed that Mitt Romney would be the third pig who builds his house out of brick but in reality Mitt Romney has built his house out of sticks
With the obvious plus or minus caveats of caucuses and confusion over the allocations, Mitt Romney is running roughly 10-15 delegates ahead of the pace he would need to get to 1144 delegates and has a lead of about 80 on the combination of Santorum and Gingrich. However he also faces a 900,000 plus vote gap on the combination of the two. That makes for a house of sticks. If Romney can reach the magic number of 1144 delegates before the convention, no questions will be asked. But if Romney does not get to 1144, than people will begin to start blowing at sticks, and the house risks total collapse, so just how is that Romney has taken an 80 delegate lead while losing by more than 900,000. There are three main reasons.
1. Florida, Arizona, Virginia [122]
Theses were de-facto winner take all contests, two[AZ,FL] of which were in violation of rules, and one of which had to do with the failure of his major rivals to get on the ballot.[VA] At 1144, no problem. If not than some level of proportionality could be forced on all three of theses states[Michigan Uncommitted in 2008 is a way to deal with Virginia]
2. Massachusetts and Idaho[70]
This is problem the strongest leg, as it is merely than power of home states, which generally has respect, however here it is more the winner take all nature of these states as opposed to say Georgia where Romney gets a chunk of delegates, while still get waxed. Some consternation about how Massachusetts and Idaho will decided the Republican Nomination would be in order.
3. Territories [34]
This will probably cause greater potential consternation. Last night 70 people met in American Somoa, and those 70 people allocated Mitt Romney 9 delegates, basically negating the entire amount of damage in Mississippi. While I am certain the history of how the parties decided to give territories delegates, it is hard to imagine that anyone ever seriously intended to give 70 people in American Somoa, the actual power to chose the next nominee. So far Romney has won 34 of 36 available territory delegates. Again at 1144, no problem under 1144 there will be questions.
Conclusion :
Mitt Romney’s entire delegate lead is built from a house of sticks. Amongst these delegates, He blanks Santorum and Gingrich 226 to 0. Without them, Romney’s lead would drop to 8 delegates over Santorum, with Gingrich at 153. This would be a disaster situation for Mitt Romney and while he is obviously not likely to lose all or even most of these delegates. If Romney is under 1144, the mediocre Wolf will almost certainly come blowing.