James, you might as well cross the word “better” out in your title. I doubt that columnists are edited at all, except possibly for length. It might even be in their contracts.

Could well be. You'd think they'd either have NYT or their own fact checkers, though, to catch these sort of things. Pundits, myself included, often write off the top of their heads based on things they've read and think they know which, every now and again, just ain't so.

Huckabee and Romney didn't get their party's nomination so how is this inaccurate?

That's why it's inaccurate.

Think Progress‘ Matt Corley notes that for the NYT has been forced to append a correction on a Bill Kristol column for an egregious factual error. Citing Obama’s 41 point loss in West Virginia, Kristol exclaimed, “I can’t find a single recent instance of a candidate who ultimately became his party’s nominee losing a primary by this kind of margin.” In fact, Mike Huckabee won his native Arkansas by 41 points and Mitt Romney took Utah by nearly 90 points in a single day this cycle.

It would, perhaps, be interesting to see if anything outside the current election cycle meets this criteria.