Those who want Newt to drop out are either Romney supporters or they haven't thought this one thru. Newt supporters are smart enough to switch their votes accordingly in winner take all states if it means beating Romney. Here in VA we figured out quite quickly to vote for Ron Paul when the Romneyites attempted to disenfranchise us. Those who vote for Newt to the detriment of Rick are just “hard core” who don't like Rick and simply won't vote for him no matter what Newt says or does.
The bottom lines is that it is quite possible that Rick will either say or do something that causes his campaign to implode ...or that something could come to light about the relatively unvetted Senator Santorum that would mortally wound his campaign. At a minimum, Newt is the Conservative “insurance policy” if Rick's candidacy should somehow implode. Otherwise the default becomes Mitt ...and virtually nobody on FR wants that!!!
We're talking about average Joes on the street, not FR inside-baseball. Most won't have a clue how their delegates are allocated. Newt's getting 14% in Illinois right now and Mitt is in the lead. Its districts are winner-take-all by direct delegate election. If Mitt's delegates win 34%-33%-33% he gets all the delegates in the district, the other guys get nothing. Although MI and OH weren't winner-take-all to that strict a standard, Newt still got enough votes to put Rick's total under Mitt's, even though he didn't campaign there. Without Newt and Rick teaming up on the same ticket, there's virtually no chance we'll beat Romney in enough of these non-proportional contests (where 800 of 1200 upcoming delegates come from) to deny him getting 1,144 delegates by June. And the notion that Newt or Rick could sway "unbound" delegates, even when all the articles say the GOP is stacking them with party insiders, is a fantasy. I would rather Rick drop out and be Newt's V.P., but the point is their supporters need to tell them there is no way forward without them teaming up and we will back them no matter how they decide to put the ticket together.
“Absolutely no reason Newt should drop out as long as he has the finances and desire to stay in.”
With 175,000 Newt donors, if each donor gave an additional $200 each (on average) that would be $35 million.