By PETER NICHOLAS
As they consider their gains and losses from Super Tuesday, the leading Republican presidential candidates are all laying out scenarios under which they win the nomination. Rep. Ron Paul is even thinking one through under which he doesn't win the 1,144 delegates needed to claim the prize.
The Texan's team says the party may go to its summer convention with no candidate holding the necessary delegates, creating a floor fight in which the party turns to him. "A brokered convention is the most favorable situation for Ron winning the nomination," said Jesse Benton, chairman of the Paul campaign.
After 23 nominating contests, Mr. Paul hasn't won a single state. His strategy of focusing on caucuses, where his modest but devoted cadre of supporters might have outsize influence, has produced no victories in nine caucus states so far—including three on Super Tuesday.
Mr. Paul even traveled to Alaska in an attempt to win there on Tuesday, the only candidate to do so. He placed third.
Mr. Paul has gathered 47 delegates, far fewer than the three other major GOP candidates, according to an Associated Press tally. By contrast, Mitt Romney leads the field with 415.
Still, Mr. Paul is neither dropping out of the race nor giving up, Mr. Benton said. Short of claiming the nomination, the campaign said it wants to gather enough delegates at the convention for Mr. Paul's ideas on the Federal Reserve and other matters to be included in the party platform.
"The actual political reality is that he has no shot mathematically to get the number of delegates needed to win the nomination," said Matthew Schlapp, a former political director for President George W. Bush. "If he had won a couple of these early caucus states—and if Gov. Romney were to continue to not be able to put this nomination away—you might be able to construct an argument. But he hasn't been able to do that
Even so, Mr. Paul has raised a total of about $31 million—more than any of his GOP rivals except Mr. Romney.
He also stacks up well against President Barack Obama by some measures. With his fiscal conservatism and aversion to military intervention, Mr. Paul has attracted a loyal following that some Republican strategists see as more of a movement than a traditional campaign.
A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed that in head-to-head matchups against Mr. Obama, Mr. Paul trailed by eight percentage points, a better showing against the president than that of Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich. Mr. Paul bested the president among men and blue-collar voters, the survey found.
But Mr. Paul's unique profile within the GOP means it is hard to gauge what his presence or absence means to the race. Allies of Messrs. Gingrich and Santorum argue that the other should drop out to clear the field for a single person to mount a tougher conservative challenge to Mr. Romney. But it is less clear that either would stand to gain if Mr. Paul dropped out.
Were Mr. Paul to go home, his coalition wouldn't necessarily flock to a Santorum candidacy, said Mike DeWine, Ohio attorney general and a Santorum supporter.
"It's more likely that Rick gets supporters from Gingrich than he does from Ron Paul," Mr. DeWine said.
The Paul campaign says even if it didn't win any caucuses outright, it can still collect a bounty of delegates in caucus states. The voting in many of those states is only the first step in a long process, and the Paul camp has sought to outmaneuver rivals by getting supporters elected to state conventions that will eventually allocate delegates.
Still, winning a state would be nice, Mr. Paul's advisers agree. "Of course we'd like to have a win by now, but there are still a lot of contests to go," said Gary Howard, a campaign spokesman.
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