Newt isn’t counting on sweeping it.
He’s trying to deadlock the convention, and he’s trying to qualify to be a force there.
Just deadlocking a convention isn't enough. If it is deadlocked, then the delegates and party officials will bargain for votes. Newt would need a strategy as to how he gets delegates for other candidates to vote for him. The problem I see is the powers that be will want to follow the money and right now Newt is broke.
Even if that happened, even if Mittens is miraculously 40 or 100 delegates short, the GOPe would easily sway enough delegates to vote for him that he would get the nomination. They would put the pressure on that got all kinds of conservatives to throw their endorsements to Romney in the past few weeks.
I don't see keeping Mitt a little shore of locking it up before the convention as allowing conservatives to win the nomination. As someone said, conservatives are dead in the Republican party. They are allowed to run and win in SOME races, but they are not allowed to be in charge of the party ,the Congress or definitely the Presidential nomination. The question is, do conservatives accept that situation because Obama is a marxist bent on America's destruction, or do they come up with a strategy that can defeat both Obama and the GOPe?