fight to balance the budget. bill clinton signed it. welfare reform, debt paid off. these delegates know this. they know that rick santorum did not do that and certainly know that mitt romney is not only didn t do this he s not even one of us. erick erickson, red state s erick erickson has written something you are not going to like. i want you to listen to this word for word. par for the course. newt gingrich last night proved he is neither a regional candidate nor a spoiler. his influence is heading in to ron paul territory. doesn t get more insulting than that. gingrich s final act could be king maker by getting out and endorsing but pride cometh before the fall. gingrich is in mid fall. what a sad end to a brilliant legacy but his campaign is over. rick, is in the sad end to the brilliant legacy that you want to see for newt gingrich?
remaining delegates to clinch the nomination and rick santorum needs to win 63%. the only thing standing in rick santorum s way seems to be newt gingrich. the new york times nate silver analyzed public policy polling that ask canned republicans in five states who they would vote for if newt gingrich dropped out of the race. slightly more than half, 57% of mr. gingrich s supporters would two to rick santorum and about a quarter, 27% would go to mr. romney. the remainder 16% would actually go to ron paul. now, if we applied those percentages to last night s races, instead of winning alabama by 6%, without newt gingrich in the race, rick santorum would have won with 52% to mitt romney s 37%. and in mississippi, instead of narrowly winning by 2%, rick santorum would have won with 51% to mitt romney s 39%.
joining me now editorial director of aol huffington post and msnbc political host howard fineman and chief adviser to george w. bush mark mckinnon. when you look at these math exercises we are dogging right now, not quite college-board level math problem s but if you took gingrich out, look at that. santorum would be in the 50s. he would be getting di vice i have majority victories in these things. he would but you have to say what is the incentive for gingrich to get out? the math is if he stays in romney probably doesn t get the number of delegates he needs to win on the first ballot of the convention. why wouldn t gingrich stay in the convention and go to the second ballot and he is the king maker either way. because i don t think that ron paul s delegate
santorum would have won with 51% to mitt romney s 39%. joining me now editorial director of aol huffington post and msnbc political host howard fineman and chief adviser to george w. bush mark mckinnon. when you look at these math exercises we are dogging right now, not quite college-board level math problem s but if you took gingrich out, look at that. santorum would be in the 50s. he would be getting di vice i have majority victories in these things. he would but you have to say what is the incentive for gingrich to get out? the math is if he stays in romney probably doesn t get the number of delegates he needs to win on the first ballot of the convention. why wouldn t gingrich stay in the convention and go to the second ballot and he is the king maker either way. because i don t think that ron
because that was a two-person race. at some point somebody had to realize that somebody was going to get a majority of the delegates. in a three or four person race that is not the case. gingrich is right. they can tag team and extend this thing. it is about leverage. where is the maximum leverage for one of these candidates to stay in or out and to me it is all for staying in. howard, some republicans, bill crystal is trying to insist this is all good for the party. he said today if romney were to earn the nomination in these circumstances he would be far better off than if he had clinched the nomination early by outspending and outmuscling a divide field. if santorum were to win, he would have a real wind at his back going to the election. i can buy the santorum piece of it. it doesn t feel so real about romney. romney s been hurt badly it seems in this. i think you are right, lawrence. i think that mitt romney hasn t