Stu Rothenberg declares: “Finally, it’s over. The fight for the GOP nomination, that is. It’s only March, but it seems as if the GOP race for president has been going on for an eternity. Now, however, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has won his party’s nomination and the right to take on President Barack Obama in the fall.”
“After a three-month struggle, Mitt Romney edged into the mop-up phase of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Wednesday, buoyed by Newt Gingrich's decision to scale back his campaign to the vanishing point and Rick Santorum's statement that he would take the No. 2 spot on the party ticket in the fall,” the New York Daily News writes.
The Boston Globe notes that if the health law is overturned by the Supreme Court, it “may force candidates to rewrite their political scripts. If the high court in June rules the law invalid, Republicans will no longer have the luxury of addressing Obama’s health care plan with a simple ‘I am against it’ and move on to the next issue.”
GINGRICH: “America has a message for Newt Gingrich: Give up,” the New York Daily News writes. “A majority of Republicans — six in 10 — want the struggling, ex-House Speaker to drop out of the presidential race, according to a new survey. The CNN/ORC International poll shows the same number also says it's time for Texas Rep. Ron Paul to call it quits. Meanwhile, GOPers say Rick Santorum should stay in, with just 39% saying it's time for him to bow out.”
“Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has been the primary source of funding for Winning Our Future, the super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, said the candidate is ‘at the end of his line’ on Wednesday,” The Hill writes. “‘It appears as though he’s at the end of his – at the end of his line,’ Adelson told a Jewish leadership conference in Las Vegas, according to a report in theJewish Journal. ‘Cause, I mean, mathematically, he can’t get anywhere near the numbers, and there’s not – unlikely there’ll be a brokered convention.’”
Ralph Z. Hallow reports: “Newt Gingrich met secretly with Mitt Romney on Saturday but the former House speaker says he has made no deal to end his bid for the GOP nomination,” Political Wire reports.
ROMNEY: “Rubio adds to a growing list of top Republicans lining up behind Romney’s campaign -- the candidate is traveling to Houston on Thursday to accept the formal endorsement of former President George H.W. Bush. It is part of a concerted effort by his campaign and supporters to consolidate support behind him,” the Boston Globe writes.
On MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Rubio said, “I'm not going to be the vice presidential nominee.” But he sounded a lot more open to the possibility on Hannity after endorsing Romney. “I don't believe I'm going to be asked to be the vice-presidential nominee,” Rubio said, per GOP 12. “That's not what I intend to be, that's not want I intend to be, and that's not what's going to happen."
Bob McDevitt, a Democratic supporter and operative, has created a Super PAC called Animal Lovers Against Romney.
SANTORUM: Gingrich got flak for saying over the weekend that President Obama’s comments about Trayvon Martin were “disgraceful” and that he introduced race into the conversation, but Politico’s Haberman reported that Santorum is telling conservatives one thing about Obama’s comments and a national audience something else.
