Time to go, Rick

More GOP bigs back Romney

WITH RICK Santorum against the ropes heading into Wisconsin, the drumbeat for him to drop out intensified Sunday as yet another GOP lion voiced support for front-runner Mitt Romney.

Senate Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell (R-KY.) stopped short of backing Romney, but said the endgame is obvious — and that most of Santorum’s former colleagues in Congress’ upper chamber are against him.

“I think he’s going to be an excellent candidate, and I think the chances are overwhelming that he will be our nominee,” Mcconnell said of Romney on CNN’S “State of the Union.”

“Most of the members of the Senate Republican conference are either supporting him or have the view that it’s time to turn our attention to the fall campaign and begin to make the case against the President.”

Santorum insisted he will continue his campaign even if he fails to pick up a win in primaries

Mitt isn’t ‘fool’ - proof

WISCONSIN polls give Mitt Romney the edge, but the GOP front-runner had an oh, no! moment Sunday when his campaign staff pulled off an April Fool’s joke in Milwaukee.

After being warned that turnout was low for a morning event, Romney was led into an empty room. “This is going to look really bad on the evening news,” Romney said, according to Reuters.

The audience was waiting in a separate room. Ehab Zahriyeh Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

“Look, this race isn’t even at halftime yet,” the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The conservative again referenced the Republican establishment’s backing of the moderate John Mccain in 2008 to argue he would give President Obama a tougher fight than Romney. Yet Wisconsin could be Santorum’s last chance to prove that logic, having suffered narrow losses in the Midwestern battlegrounds of Ohio and Michigan — and a drubbing in Illinois.

Romney, who is favored in Wisconsin polls, has 568 of the 1,144 delegates needed to lock up the nomination; Santorum has 273.

“I think Rick would need something like 82% of the rest of the delegates, and that’s just not going to happen,” House Budget Committee Chairman — and conservative darling — Rep. Paul Ryan said on “State of the Union.”

The Wisconsin Republican endorsed Romney last week, while Sen. Ron Johnson, also a Badger State Republican, backed him Sunday.

Despite Santorum’s vows to hang in the race, the next round of contests after Tuesday is shaping up to be his Alamo. The April 24 slate includes a do-or-die contest in his home state, and a host of other northeastern states where Romney is favored — Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and New York.

“We have to win Pennsylvania,” Santorum said on NBC’S “Meet the Press” on Sunday.