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By Adam Bitely — It appears that the fat lady has finally sung and the curtain is closing on the Republican contest for the Presidential nomination. She appears to be singing about Mitt Romney’s victory.
For those that believe there is still a chance for one of the other candidates to somehow stage a spring comeback — think again.
Over the weekend, Newt Gingrich went out of his way to let the media know that he has made peace with Romney. As Newt put it on Fox News Sunday, “I hit him as hard as I could, he hit me as hard as he could. Turns out he had more things to hit with than I did. That’s part of the business.”
As Politico reported, Mitt responded to Newt’s comments on the Mike Huckabee radio program saying, “It was not a surprise — he and I have spoken from time to time, and in fact he and I have been together with our wives and spoken.” Mitt continued saying that Newt is “pretty open eyed about this, we talk about where are at this stage, and the likelihood that I will get the delegates to become the nominee.”
Mitt is now openly bragging that it is nearly impossible for any of the other candidates to pass him in the race for convention delegates.
While Gingrich hasn’t formally dropped out, it appears that he is positioning himself for political life after Romney’s claims to the nomination are complete. After all, Newt needs all the allies he can get after he drops out of the race, especially after one of the think tanks that he manages went bankrupt late last week.
Mitt’s best-positioned opponent, Rick Santorum, is showing signs he plans to stay around for a while longer. Many speculate that if he is not able to win the primary in his home, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on April 24 that he will exit the race then. The latest Real Clear Politics average of polls in Pennsylvania show Santorum with a narrow 1.7 percent advantage over Romney in the Commonwealth.
Ron Paul has pivoted to a strategy of collecting convention delegates in more low-key ways. Instead of blowing through precious campaign money on expensive ad buys, his campaign is putting money to organizing delegates for the convention on the lower level. The results of this strategy are mostly unknown at this point as we will see how many delegates he is able to get registered at the time of the convention later this summer.
Nonetheless, even with Paul’s under the radar efforts to gather convention delegates, it is extremely hard to see anyone else but Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to face Barack Obama in November.
When Romney is able to get Newt Gingrich, who he had several heated debates against early this year, to begin warming up his supporters to the idea that Mitt Romney is their man, then you know the end is near. And Santorum should know that too. After all, he had hoped that Gingrich would drop out and throw his support (and delegates) towards him.
But Newt is a political opportunist. He will support whoever will give him the biggest reward. And Rick Santorum may not have much to offer as the man who will come in second for the GOP nomination.
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com. You can follow Adam on Twitter at @AdamBitely.
