GOP Primary Scoreboard - Florida Edition

John McCain's victory in the Florida Republican primary has vaulted him for the first time into the delegate lead.  The state's 57 winner-take-all delegates bring McCain's total to 97, ahead of Romney's 74 and Huckabee's 29.

(If you missed it, here's the play-by-play of the evening's festivities.)

As illustrated below, Romney still leads or ties in some of the aggregate metrics, including average finish and average vote share.  Even so, with Rudy apparently poised to endorse McCain, we'll now need to steel ourselves for a week of breahtless media coronations of John McCain as the undeniable frontrunner (and various derivative conclusions about the soul of the GOP, the legacy of the Bush administration, the future of partisan politics, the meaning of life, whether man is inherently good or evil, and other grandiose extrapolations based on 100,000 Floridian votes).

As I mentioned earlier, the national polling trends show Romney climbing swiftly and McCain falling almost as swiftly.  But the double-bump McCain will enjoy from the Florida win and the Giuliani endorsement could stop that dead in its tracks.  According to tonight's exit polling, as reported by Fox News, Rudy supporters opt for Romney over McCain by 2:1 as their second choice.  But Giuliani throwing his weight squarely behind McCain could meaningfully alter the disposition of his refugees.

With Florida now in the rearview mirror and McCain about to realize what may be the grandest endorsement of his campaign, consolation for Romney supporters (in addition to the nearly evenly split frontrunner metrics) may lie in prospective bigwig backings to come Romney's way over the next 6 days.  With Super Tuesday looming and wih the field having winnowed to two sharply contrasting candidates (simply put, the conservative and the moderate), anyone who has yet to voice their preference and wants to have an impact will need to act fast.  One has to suspect Mitt will be personally burning up the phone lines over the next day or two.

Who do you reckon will be the biggest fish reeled in on each side (other than Rudy) between now and February 5th?  And will Huckabee have the good grace to sashay on out of the race or will he relish his new role as possible spoiler to Mitt?