Allow me to get the thread back on track with a question, what happens to a candidate's delegates after they drop out of the race? Do they simply drop out and not cast a vote for another candidate or what?
Typically, the candidate who drops out endorses one of the remaining candidate. His delegates are not bound to follow the candidate's lead, but often do.
Illinois election today! Romney is very likely to win, in no small part because he's outspending everyone else by orders of magnitude. One article stated he outspent Santorum 21-to-1 in the Chicago metro area. So Romney is proving that he can win votes, but is incredibly inefficient at doing so. He's a coal-fired Titanic, compared to Santorum's solar-powered speedboat. And Ron Paul's gold-powered tugboat. And Gingrich's private yacht which is actually powered by Newt's own self-righteousness. And then there's poor Buddy Roemer, floating in a life preserver.
Yeah, that metaphor kinda went off the rails at some point.
But it's worth remembering that because of Illinois' insane loophole primary system, the popular vote and the delegate outcome have no causal connection. Romney could win 50% of the popular vote and wind up with 2 delegates, because they're almost all running as "uncommitted" delegates which allows them to throw their eventual support behind whoever they want. I certainly don't think there's ANY chance that bribery could possibly ever come into play in THIS situation.[/suspiciouslystridentdenial]