Team Romney makes the case for a quick primary

Alex and Maggie wrote this morning about the very real possibility of a long-slog primary for Mitt Romney, in which his opponents stay in the race long beyond South Carolina and Florida to amass delegates under the new proportional rules.

But the Romney camp is making a fairly explicit argument this morning that the race will be over much sooner than that. In a memo this morning, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul writes — complete with the chart below — that since many of Romney's GOP rivals have missed ballot deadlines in one or more states, they'll be unable to amass enough delegates to keep their campaigns going.

Ballot access has been an issue for several less organized campaigns this year, and delegates from bigger states like Illinois or Virginia could be crucial to keeping a candidate in the running delegate-wise. It's no secret that Romney's campaign has the best ground organization further down the calendar, which is why making the ballot hasn't been an issue for them — but whether that advantage will be enough to end the primary quickly remains to be seen.