Posted by
RightTeacher on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 2:13:30 PM
Hugh Hewitt's
math may be technically correct as far as it goes, but we need to look deeper.
It takes 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination. There are more than 900 delegates left to fight for after Super Tuesday.
Start looking hard at the numbers and put yourself in the discussions with Team Romney. It isn't pretty, but it is far, far from over.
We need to look at what percentage of the remaining delegates Romeny would need to win.
Look at CNN's numbers and Hugh's scenarios. (all numbers are McCain/Romney/Huckabee)
CNN: 95/67/26. Here, McCain needs to get 50.16% of the remaining delegates. Romney needs 51.44%. This is a small, but probably not significant difference.
Hugh's original numbers. 97/74/26. McCain needs 50.28% of remaining, while Romney needs 51.33% of remaining.
Adding in the states that Hugh says are sure for Super Tuesday, we get (409/126/63). With these numbers McCain's percentage of remaining delagates that he needs to win drops down to 44% and Romney's climbs to 60%. This is bad news. This is what we need to look at. How hard would it be for Romney to get the 60% that he would need?
It only gets worse. Hugh gives two separate scenarios for the remaining Super Tuesday states:
Even (40/40/20) leaves us (678/395/196) McCain would need 46.47% of remaining delegates, and Romney would need 72.10% of remaining delegates. Stop me when you've got the picture.
Hugh's "pessimistic" prediction leaves (745/327/197) If this were the case, McCain would only need 40.40% of the remaining delegates while Romney would need 78.26%.
There may be lots of delegates left to fight over after Super Tuesday, but how likely is it that Romney would be able to pick up nearly 80% of those delegates?
We cannot assume pessimistic scenarios. We cannot concede or allow pessimistic scenarios. We have to fight over every delegate from now until someone reaches 1,191, or else the Republican party will be led by someone who has time and again turned his back on that selfsame Republican party he will purport to lead.
In one of his interviews with Hugh, Guiliani said that the Republican party needs to overcommunicate to overcome the chatter and the static that is the MSM. Romney needs to overcommunicate over the next week and the weeks after that so that the Republican party can know who would be better for the Republican party.