The biggest news event of the night was the Florida primary, but the only surprising bits of information to come across the mediasphere were from the Federal Election Commission findings.

We learned that Rick Perry was as profligate with his campaign funds as he was limited with his ideas, burning through $14m in the final weeks of his flagging campaign. And that Michele Bachmann was as loosey-goosey with money as she was with facts: her campaign committees' debt aggregates out at $447,000.

The frontrunners' books revealed character traits as well. Mitt Romney and his family have given thousands to help retire the campaign debt of former rival, current surrogate Tim Pawlenty: the man uses money to make problems go away. Newt Gingrich's accounting included a line item paying the former speaker of the House to be the candidate, an unusual use of limited funds that is only out of character in that it suggests Gingrich believes a finite value can be placed on his importance.

As of this writing, Gingrich has yet to even formally concede the race – and it's not like it was close. Gingrich has written several books of "speculative fiction", novels that play out what might have happened if some major historical event had gone the other way (a favorite theme being to toy with the idea that the Confederacy might have come closer to winning the Civil War). To judge by his attitude last night in Florida, Gingrich is taking the same approach to his campaign, soldiering on as if the double-digit loss hadn't happened.

To judge by his speech, he's writing futuristic fiction as well, plotting an almost minute-by-minute agenda for his first hours as president. He'll skip the inaugural balls, he'll repeal "Obamacare", he'll get rid of the "White House czars" (whom he'd presumably have to hire first), he'll move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Also, there will be ponies.

These ideas are ludicrously specific, yet fundamentally vague – the political equivalent to the advice Steve Martin once gave to those asking "How can I be a millionaire?": "First, get a million dollars." (Martin's routine expands on the idea with instructions on how to "be a millionaire … and never pay taxes!" His advice? Claim, "I forgot!" He really missed his calling as an accountant to the 1%.)

That Newt is living in a fantasy land is OK, though, because Romney has set up camp in the same imaginary district. The opening lines of Romney's victory speech all but ratified its borders, declaring, "A competitive primary does not divide us; it prepares us." With those words, Romney – intentionally or not – put us all on the sidelines of a battle that shouldn't really be happening: Newt's chances of actually winning the nomination are minimal – and shrinking.

To be sure, Romney can't wrap up the slot quickly. As NBC's Chuck Todd pointed out, even if Romney wins every contest in front of him and walks away with 100% of all the delegates at stake in each of them, he numerically cannot secure the nomination until 24 April. If he has a challenger (or two) who scrape off 40% of the available delegates, it will take him until 5 June.

Whether what happens between April and June will improve Romney's chances of beating Obama, or worsen them, depends on which Romney shows up on the campaign trail. The one that walked away with Florida was not the carefully groomed rationalist, given to describing Obama as a "nice guy" who is "in over his head". He was a vicious and, at times, sarcastic campaigner who told sneaky lies (or maybe, he approved that anti-Gingrich Spanish-language ad in his sleep) and seemed to relish poking at Newt's doughy rhetoric.

Voters, already lukewarm about Romney, are not fond of the new version. Up until last week, he had been skating by on a favorability rating of about 40%, with 30% unfavorable. The latest polling flips that ratio, and hitting a new low with independent voters: just 23% have a favorable view.

Now, those numbers are from national polls and it's important to remember that GOP primary voters do not hold the same opinions. Obviously, Florida voters in particular didn't mind meeting Bad Mitt. Exit polls showed that Romney and Gingrich tied at 34% as to who ran "the most unfair campaign". That result says a lot for the intensity of Gingrich's vitriol. He managed to run a campaign just as poisonous as Romney's while still being outspent by $12m. Perhaps that's why Romney still won the votes of 12% of those who found his campaign the most unfair; that acid bath was more diluted.

But acid still wears. By the time we get to next fall, will there be any of the Good Mitt left?