You don’t understand the winner-take-all delegate allocation rules. Most of the upcoming states either award all the delegates to whoever has the highest votes per district or state, or they deny delegates to other candidates if one candidate gets over 50%. In 18 of the 28 counties in IL, the combined votes from Rick and Newt would have switched Romney from the winner to the loser. And if Rick had Newt’s votes in AL, Romney would have been shut out of a lot of the delegates he got. If Rick announced Newt as his V.P., he’d definitely get more than half of Newt’s voters, and they’d get such a media surge and bump from the announcement, it would be reminiscent of what happened to the McCain ticket after Palin gave her convention speech.
As per usual when it comes to the in and outs of the rules, and the math you are far more knowledgeable than I JJ. However, I think you’re too optimistic regarding Newt supporters getting behind Santorum. If Newt were to drop out tomorrow what is your estimation of the split Santorum would need? (please base your estimation on reality and not the pie in the sky theories I’ve heard of Santorum trouncing Romney in liberal/moderate states like California and New Jersey)
So?