I saw Hugh Hewitt...

...on MSNBC last night and he was asked about Ted Cruz's path to victory. If I remember correctly -- and I can't find it anywhere this morning -- Mr. Hewitt's answer involved the Supreme Court. It was something to the effect that the open seat on the Court would bring out voters for Sen. Cruz.

To be fair, Hewitt may have been talking about the Republican nomination, not the general election in the fall. But let's assume Cruz does win the nomination in a contested convention and fast-forward to November.

Take a look at that map of the 2012 election at the top of this post. Even if Mitt Romney had won Ohio, Florida and Virginia, he would have still fallen short of the 270 Electoral votes necessary to win.

Now consider a right-wing ideologue like Ted Cruz. Which states could he win that Romney didn't? I don't see any, do you? Even against a deeply flawed candidate like Hillary Clinton, it's hard to imagine Cruz doing as well as Romney did in 2012.