SLOUCHING TO VICTORY: Mitt Romney wins six on Super Tuesday but gets labelled a loser.

Poor old Mitt Romney.

He wins six out of 10 states on Super Tuesday and a clear majority of the delegates available. He overcomes a 12-point opinion poll deficit in Ohio to narrowly beat Rick Santorum, who wins only three states.

In terms of delegates – the only measure that really counts – Romney is on 386, Santorum on 158, Newt Gingrich on 94 and Ron Paul on 60. He’s still far short of the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination, but that’s because of the proportional system introduced by the Republican party this year.

On Super Tuesday, according to RCP’s Erin McPike, he added to his vote total making it 3.2 million votes to Santorum’s 1.9 million. Thus far, he’s won 14 states to Santorum’s six, Gingrich’s two and Ron Paul’s zero.

Yet this is portrayed as Romney’s “worst night yet”, a “bad night”, as “winning ugly” and his candidacy is branded “lethargic”. Even the most favourable takes on the Super Tuesday results stress that he hasn’t sealed the deal with conservatives, that he’s outspent his rival fourfold but is still only just beating them and that the Obama campaign is delighted with life.

So what’s going on?

A lot.