Romney Campaign Suggests It’s Time for Opponents to ‘Step Aside’
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EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — With their win in Illinois Tuesday night, Mitt Romney’s campaign is more openly suggesting that Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul take a page from Romney’s 2008 playbook and drop out of the race.
Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom, in an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan, said that even though John McCain had not yet clinched the Republican nomination at a similar point in the race four years ago, Romney “made the decision — and it was a difficult one — to step aside.”
In 2008, Romney quit the race “because he thought it was good for the country,” Fehrnstrom said, and because “he wanted to give John McCain the time to rally the party and unite behind his candidacy.” He added that this year, ”there is no deus ex machina that’s coming down from the heavens that’s going to change the math of the race.”
But was Fehrnstrom’s comparison of the 2008 and 2012 races accurate?
When Romney exited the race in 2008, his delegate math looked a lot like Santorum’s does today. Santorum has collected 22 percent of the delegates needed to win the nomination, while Romney had collected 24 percent in 2008.
Upon Romney’s 2008 exit, fewer than half — 44 percent — of all delegates remained to be allocated, either in upcoming states or as Republican National Committee superdelegates. After the 2012 Illinois primary, just over half — 53 percent — will be elected by remaining states or sent to Tampa as superdelegates.
McCain, however, was mathematically closer to the Republican nomination than Romney is today.
Romney dropped out on Feb. 7, 2008, two days after Super Tuesday in that year’s front-loaded primary schedule. At the time, McCain had won over 630 delegates, nearly 60 percent of the 1,191 delegates needed to win the nomination.
With delegates still being tallied in Illinois, Romney has won 560 — just fewer than half (49 percent) of the 1,144 needed to win in 2012. In other words, Romney is close to where McCain was in 2008, but he’s not quite there.
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