Darkness Before the Light Comes

So imagine me sitting at home tonight, trying (with limited success) to get some work done, while keeping my eye on my alma mater BYU's first game of March Madness as well as the Mississippi and Alabama primary results.  Imagine my mood as BYU went down early by 25 points to Iona with the Gaels looking like world beaters and my Cougars looking...well, sort of ridiculous.  At the same time, I see the returns from the South become increasingly clear that Santorum was going to win both states, and Romney likely to come in a close third in both.  Despair?  Not quite, but not all that far off either.

Fast forward an hour.  BYU stops turning the ball over, settles down on defense, starts getting the ball where they like to get it and the shots started falling.  The comeback was not an instant rush and there were some reverses.  But the Cougs had time on the clock, and they kept at it and did the job, winning an amazing comeback win by 6 points and moving on in the tournament - the biggest comeback in NCAA Tournament history.

About the same time, I start looking closer at the actual delegate estimates from the night.  In Mississippi, CNN lists 13 delegates for Santorum, and 12 each for Romney.  In Alabama, Santorum has 19 delegates, with Romney and Gingrich 9 each.  Doesn't look quite so bad.  That's 10 more delegates for Santorum than for Romney in the two states.  But that's before Hawai'i and American Samoa complete their voting in the Pacific, which has proven to be a great stronghold for Romney so far.  Hawai'i will add 20 delegates, and Samoa 9 more.  I think there is an excellent chance that Romney will come out of today with the most delegates on the night.  And THAT would be a miraculous comeback.

All the more amazing when you consider the real story in terms of who will win the nomination: we are about half way through the path to the nomination, which means there become fewer and fewer states for Santorum to try to get anywhere close to the number needed to win the nomination.  Which means the path for Romney only looks better and stronger.  Romney should end the night somewhere close to 500 delegates, which is closing in on half the delegates needed to be the nominee.  And of the states remaining to vote, there are only a few winner-takes-all states left...those become the big prizes.  And every one of them looks solid/likely for Romney.  The rest of the states seem to still have an edge for Romney as well.  Total all that up, and I still don't know how Santorum really justifies his path and thinks he can win an above-board nomination.

So, take heart...the Cougars came back and won.  I believe things are going to be looking better for Mitt as well.

UPDATE: American Samoa's 9 votes go to Romney, CNN reports.  That puts Romney back within 1 delegate of Santorum on the night.  Early results from Hawaii looking favorable.  

UPDATE2: Romney wins Hawaii 45% to 25% for Santorum.  Haven't seen final breakdown of delegates updated yet, but this is huge.  Again, it means Romney will have earned more delegates on the night than Santorum, despite S'rum's wins in the South.  

UPDATE3: By my totals, this means Romney has won more states than all his rivals combined (15 states + 4 territories for Romney, 12 states + 0 territories for the others), more delegates than the others combined (if we give the Hawaii delegates to Romney we should be at about 506 for Romney and about 439 for the others combined), and Romney has about 40% of the total votes cast, more than 50% ahead of his nearest competitor, Santorum.  But the media, of course, is going to talk up Santorum (so is the Obama administration, by the way).