If it came to the convention...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Most likely none of these.  What would actually happen is that Romney and Santorum (assuming they have the most delegates) would each try to make a deal with one of the people on this list to be VP, in order to try to win over Gingrich delegates.  Enough Gingrich delegates would break away in one direction or the other to give either Romney or Santorum the nomination.

This, which is why all the brokered convention scenarios giving the nomination to someone who didn't bother to run are pretty ridiculous.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Really even though I find Romney, Santorum and Gingrich three of the most repulsive people in American politics even I would actually feel pretty bad for them if the GOP basically said "F**k you, none of your campaigns or votes mattered one bit. We're just going to nominate whoever we want." As pointed out elsewhere, many independent voters might not even be aware of how that's legal. It looks REALLY bad. Like twice as bad as if Hillary somehow got her superdelegate coup in 2008.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

They still deserve it more than someone who received 0% of the vote in all contests and didn't even bother with running a campaign.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If all these heroic savior candidates are so strong, why didn't they actually get in the race before the actual campaign? Wait are you saying that your Glorious, Unbeatable Messiahs probably wouldn't be able to defeat this pretty weak field? Hmmmm....

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I suppose it's not really my business how the GOP chooses its candidate, just as Russia's "electoral type events" aren't really my business either. But if you can get me to feel an ounce of sympathy for three of the most loathsome people in American politics, you've crossed a line for sure. By the way might want to look at how McGovern's Eagleton swap ended up.

Once again the question remains unanswered why this hypothetical glorious Messiah didn't run in the actual campaign. I mean if they're so amazing they'd have no trouble defeating this very weak field, right?

Oh and you can believe Jeb is superior and more competent than his brother all you want, but the only things your average voter knows about him is: 1-His name is Bush and 2-He was Governor of Florida during the 2000 election fiasco (and in this scenario: 3-He took the nomination during very unusual and undemocratic circumstances). And he only has six weeks to tell anyone otherwise during the biggest media circus ever. Yeah that's a real winner.