What if Romney were an NFL franchise?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via twitter:

Team Romney has spent $3.9 million on OH ads. Santorum + Newt combined: $1.6 million.

-- Alex Burns (@aburnspolitico)

Once again, we see that Mitt can only win -- whether individual states like Florida and Michigan or likely the nomination itself -- by grossly outspending his opponents. (And even then he has lost, like in Iowa and South Carolina.)

In sports terms, he's like the Yankees and the Red Sox combined -- but without any serious talent developed from within. (He has no "Core Four," just a bunch of overpaid free agents, and he can make up for any blunder by spending his way out of trouble and crushing his less-fortunate foes.)

But just imagine him in the NFL, a more competitive league with a ruthless salary cap. He'd be stuck with a bloated roster and no way to get out from under his own failure. Maybe by cutting veterans and restructuring contacts and by drafting smartly, but everything we've seen of him, keeping this analogy going, suggests that he'd be a miserable judge of talent and a poor player developer. I suspect he'd be a 6-10 team, at best. Maybe Santorum would only be 7-9, if even that, but Romney wouldn't be able to buy wins the way he's doing now.

Worse for Mitt, imagine him in a league with a salary cap and guaranteed contacts, like the NHL. He'd have no way of overcoming his weaknesses and failures and would be stuck in perpetual mediocrity, at best, while savvier teams spent the same amount of money far more wisely. He'd be the Toronto Maple Leafs, once able to spend their way out of trouble but now spinning their wheels and barely even competitive enough to challenge for a playoff spot.

There are a number of reasons why Romney will win this race, not least the general awfulness of his rivals, but when it comes down to it, it's the money, stupid.