By all indications John McCain will have shutout Mike Huckabee come Wednesday morning after all the data is collected from the four voting states on Tuesday, Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. Huckabee is really pushing in Texas but so far his efforts are not paying off in the polls.

He has said a number of times and repeated it recently in Texas that he’s going to keep “plugging away” until somebody reaches the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. McCain may still come up short of that exact number. According to the most recent count, McCain as 1,014 total delegates, according to the latest Associated Press tallies. But he has 912 pledged delegates.Even if he wins all 256 delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, he’d still be more than 20 short.

If Huckabee stays true to his word, which so far he has, this hopeless effort of his, that is more of a distraction than a contest, will drag out to Mississippi on March 11. Huckabee strategist Ed Rollins told Politico.com that come Wednesday the campaign might suspend or scale back its operations, “but we’re not quitting” if nobody reaches the delegate threshold.

So he’ll remain in the race at that point if only as a name on a ballot? What does he hope to gain out of any of this?

An average of Texas polls on RealClearPolitics.com showed McCain with 55 percent, Huckabee with 32 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul with nearly 8 percent.