John McCain's trusted senior advisor and dear friend Charlie Black has a message for Mitt Romney; stop the bleeding now.
He just released a "memo" (political speak for PR release) outlining why Romney should quit the race. Read below and then respond to the obvious question; is it time for Romney to get out?
Below is the memo from Charlie Black. (notice they don't encourage Huckabee to get out)
Senator McCain went into Super Tuesday with nearly a two-to-one lead in the Delegate count. He ends Super Tuesday (unofficially) with nearly 750 delegates in his column (estimates based on proportionally divided states and unofficial returns) while Romney has only 236, just a few ahead of Huckabee. Our unofficial count shows Mitt Romney trails by 510 delegates. As of today, more than 1400 delegates have been assigned or decided through primary or caucus contests.
The remaining contests account for roughly 963 delegates. For Mitt Romney to match our delegate count, he would have to win more than 50% of those delegates. And, he would have to win nearly every single delegate still available in order to become the nominee. And, many of these contests are proportional, so Mitt will have to win by big margins in many states to garner every last delegate. For example, in this weekend's Louisiana Primary, he would have to win the with more than 50% of the vote in order to win (1191 delegates to win, 963+236=1,199).
With Mike Huckabee still a factor in this race, particularly in the South, and many contests moving forward proportional, the math is nearly impossible for Mitt Romney to win the nomination
In March, April and May, only four contests are "winner take all." Most contests will be proportional, divided by Congressional District or decided by some other split decision. This makes Mitt Romney's prospects even dimmer. In all of yesterday's split states, Mitt barely won any delegates at all.
Nearly one-half of the upcoming contests are open primaries. Senator McCain has proven that he can compete in both closed and open primaries. But, Mitt is undeniably weaker in states with open contests, making his path even more difficult. To make things worse for Mitt, the open contests are in larger states (Ohio, Texas, Indiana).
Senator McCain's major victories in the Northeast, the South and his competitive performance in California will boost his numbers in National Polls. Because the next round of contests are generally spread out and small, it will be nearly impossible for Mitt to re-capture the media momentum needed to revive his campaign. The big contests will not occur until March (Ohio, 88 Dels and Tex, 140 Dels), by then, the media will be itching for a new angle on the Republican contest.