Since a combination of Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul will suck more votes from the onerous Romney than any single candidate, they should all stay in the race.
This will improve the odds for a brokered convention.
The critical thing is to keep the onerous Romney from getting the 1144 votes needed for a first ballot nomination. Because if he fails in this, it will be a wide open convention and delegates can vote for whoever they choose.
And it won’t be Romney. In fact, it probably won’t the Santorum or the other current candidates, either.
It is almost certain to be a more conservative candidate, who is *not* controlled by moneyed interests, and is *not* a whopping egomaniac. One who is focused on the obeying the constitution, conservative core values, and has a profound ethical sense.
This will improve the odds for a brokered convention.
It doesn't work that way. Because of winner-take-all distribution either by district or state, Romney now has 53% of the delegates awarded so far with only 39% of the popular vote. At this rate, he probably wins it straight up, especially since there are more WTA states coming up later and they mostly favor him (Mormon or liberal states like UT and NJ). I'm not sure if the increasing amount of proportional southern states will be enough to counteract that.