Mitt Romney to Endorse McCain

It looks like it’s almost all over but the shouting in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The Associated Press reports thusly:

Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney agreed Thursday to endorse Sen. John McCain for the party’s presidential nomination and ask his national convention delegates to swing behind the front-runner, according to officials familiar with the decision.

Romney collected 280 delegates during his run through the early primaries and caucuses, enough to move McCain close to the total of 1,191 needed to clinch the nomination a full nine months before the November general election.

The officials who disclosed Romney’s plans did so on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting a formal announcement later in the day. McCain was campaigning in Vermont and Rhode Island during the day, and added a flight to Boston to appear with Romney to accept the endorsement at his waterfront campaign headquarters.

Based on MSNBC’s numbers, coupled with the accuracy of my TI-86 calculator, McCain only needs an additional 87 delegates to sew it up. With Wisconsin and Washington primaries coming on the 19th, as well as smaller caucuses in US island territories (Guam, American Samoa, Northern Marinara Islands, and the US Virgin Islands), he can easily pick those up by February 23rd. Or, Mike Huckabee could just drop out and hand McCain his delegates.

So, yeah. It looks like ____________ vs. McCain in November.

Sorry, Thunder Pig…