I am listening to Hugh Hewitt tonight.

I love Hugh Hewitt (and I like Mitt Romney okay). But Hugh is completely irrational when it comes to Mitt and this election.

He has overtly limited his callers tonight to listeners who support Romney and adamantly desire him to stay in the race. If anyone violates this rule (and expresses a dissenting opinion), they are rudely ejected off the show. All the while, after every positive call, Hewitt announces: "another vote for Romney to stay in!"

The Romney-ites are curiously and comically insistent that their man is winning this race.

The Facts: Romney is an extremely wealthy person, who built and funded a great organization, and devised a brilliant strategy. The plan: win the Iowa caucus (spending more money there than all the other candidates combined and utilizing his army of paid volunteers). From there, win the New Hampshire primary, where he was well positioned as a former governor of neighboring Massachusetts. Next capture Michigan, where his father served as a popular governor during the 1960s. These early victories would begin an avalanche of inevitability, allowing Romney to win the GOP nomination. It was a great plan—but it went awry.

He did not miss by much. Romney almost "bought the pot" in Iowa, chasing all of his big-name competitors from the field, but, in the end, he lost by nine points to an under-funded long shot, Mike Huckabee. In New Hampshire, five days later, lightening struck again when John McCain, long given up for dead, dramatically climbed out of the crypt and took the Granite State by six points. Moreover, Hewitt concedes that Romney may well come in second in Michigan next week and possibly do even worse in South Carolina after that. Nevertheless, Hewitt asserts with complete confidence that all is going according to plan (Plan B), and Romney remains in the best position to secure the nomination.

Plan B: outlast the other hopefuls and win by default.

Now that is the Audacity of Hope.

Of course, the crazy thing is that things are so chaotic that I am not ready to say that this line of thinking is completely foolish. Nobody Knows Anything. At this point in the GOP canvass, nothing is impossible. McCain and Huckabee, the presumptive frontrunners, have troubles of their own—lingering skepticism with core conservatives. Rudy is betting heavy on his ability to draw an inside-straight in Florida (the first card of his big-state strategy), and Fred is still a mystery (are we waiting on a broken-down bus?).

So, conceivably, all these candidates could run out of gas and the ever-smiling, optimistic, all-America Mitt Romney, currently running second everywhere and giving pleasantly gracious concession speeches, might be there to pick up the pieces.

I doubt it, but damn if I know…

UPDATE: The AP is reporting the Romney is pulling ads in South Carolina and Florida.