Wilson said it was Huckabee, not Romney, who emerged from Super Tuesday as the main challenger to McCain. Although he said Huckabee also has no chance to win the GOP nomination, he's shown he can campaign effectively with very little money.

Romney, on the other hand, is worth an estimated $350 million and has outspent his competition by investing his own money in the campaign. By the end of 2007, Romney's contributions to his race totaled $35 million.

If Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, does stay in the race, he'll likely scale back. "I suspect he will ratchet down his personal expenditures," Wilson said. "I don't think he wants to dump more of his own money into now what is a very long-shot bid."

Kirk Jowers, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and a longtime Romney supporter, said that despite Romney's resources, he may end up making the same decision that McCain did after running out of money.

"At some point, it becomes painful no matter how wealthy you are," Jowers said. "McCain cut drastically back in the summer of '07 and ran a more bare-bones campaign. Nothing says Romney can't do the same for the next month."

There's some suggestion that Romney wants to stay in the race long enough to outlast Huckabee. Romney's campaign has already accused Huckabee of cutting "a Washington backroom deal" with McCain to hurt Romney's efforts to appeal to conservatives.

"There seems to be a little personal animosity there," said Kelly Patterson, head of Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. But he said Romney would likely bow out before Huckabee.

That's because Huckabee "has been quite successful" attracting conservative voters in the South, Patterson said. "The real question is whether he wasn't successful in those other states because he didn't have the resources."

Before Tuesday, Huckabee had won only Iowa. Now he has wins in West Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. McCain, who'd won New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, picked up nine more states Tuesday including California and New York.

Romney finished first in Wyoming, Michigan, Nevada and Maine prior to Tuesday's voting and now also has victories in Utah, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado, Minnesota and Alaska.

It might be time, some suggested, for Romney to start thinking about the next race.

"I think he's young enough to come back," Land said, noting that both Romney and Huckabee could be tapped to serve in a McCain administration. A vice presidential slot, though, looks more likely for Huckabee than Romney.

Jowers said Romney, 60, would be in a good position for another run at the White House in four years if a Democrat wins in November. "He would automatically be a front-runner for 2012."

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