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Analysts: McCain nomination nearly certain

BY TOM BRUNE AND KEITH HERBERT | tom.brune@newsday.com
keith.herbert@newsday.com

9:17 PM EST, February 6, 2008

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., greets supporters at a Super Tuesday presidential primary elections night in Phoenix. (AP Photo / February 6, 2008)

WASHINGTON - Now that the delegate count from the 21 states in the Republican's Super Tuesday is becoming clearer, John McCain increasingly looks like a winner in the race for the GOP nomination.

It's not so much that he has won more than half the delegates he needs to clinch the prize as much as there is no clear path to the nomination for his rivals, the dogged Mitt Romney or the upset-minded Mike Huckabee, political analysts said Wednesday.

Some analysts said it's almost mathematically impossible for Romney and Huckabee to catch up or pass McCain in the race for delegates.

But McCain, still opposed by some key conservatives and talk-show hosts and aware that his rivals remain in the race, expressed a sense of urgency Wednesday as he returned here for a crucial speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) today.

Looking ahead to Tuesday's primaries in Washington, Maryland and Virginia, McCain launched three TV ads and planned to go on the stump. "I think we need to wrap this thing up as soon as possible," he said in a Phoenix hangar before flying here Wednesday.

"We'll be hitting the campaign trail (Friday) morning. Do we have a lot of work to do to unite our party? Yes."

Previewing his message for CPAC, McCain said, "Spending and corruption dispirited our base ... We've got a lot of work to do to convince them we're truly fiscal conservatives."

In Boston, Romney huddled with advisers yesterday and indicated he will go forward, possibly, some pundits said, in hopes of a brokered convention if he can stop McCain.

Romney will speak ahead of McCain at the CPAC meeting today and then appear at the Baltimore Republican Lincoln Day Dinner Thursday night.

Huckabee, eyeing another Southern victory in Louisiana's primary Saturday, said on Fox News, "I'm staying in the race because I still want to be president, and until somebody gets 1,191 delegates, we don't have a nominee."

By day's end Wednesday, McCain had racked up 703 delegates, nearly 60 percent of the 1,191 needed -- more than double Romney's 269 and triple Huckabee's 190, the AP reported. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14.

McCain cannot win the magic number of delegates without sweeping all 16 contests and delegates from now through the March 4 primaries.

But for Romney to snatch the nomination, he would either have to sweep all 23 contests and delegates from now until the May 20 primaries, or deny McCain more than half of the available delegates.

"It is almost mathematically impossible," said Columbia Law School's Nathaniel Persily.

Said Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac Poll: "It's hard to see how anyone else wins the nomination." Romney can't win in the South and Huckabee can't win outside of the South, he added.

In a memo, McCain strategist Charlie Black Wednesday wrote, "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."

He said Romney would have to win more than half of the remaining 963 delegates, requiring big margins in many states.

And he will have to compete in many contests, including big states Ohio and Texas, open to independents and Democrats as well as Republicans, where Romney is "weaker" and McCain a proven vote getter.