O RLY?

Speaker Gingrich was never a favorite of the Republican brain trust. Since his surge in South Carolina we are seeing a steady drumbeat by the conservative media against him. He bullied too many of his allies and simply alienated the rest.

Now, the majority of Americans aren't even paying a minute's worth of attention to the campaign so far. The only people busy are the true believers and the morbidly interested. But as soon as the electorate gets wind of Gingrich's operational double standard, should he be the GOP nominee, he's going to be buried.

It isn't that he cheated on two wives and has the potential to be going into the White House with one of his mistresses. He could be forgiven, in the modern American mind, for that and divorces and all the rest. That's not the problem.

What's going to strike him dead in the water is when people put 2 and 2 together; specifically that precious moment in history when, because of the Monica Lewinsky debacle, Gingrich publicly said that President Clinton "no longer has the moral authority to lead." - - - After which he went off to his weekend hideaway with the woman he was cheating on his wife with.

You've got to be kidding me. Once people clamp down on that there's no hope for him. As it is the Republican leadership (that unseen blob of state party chairmen and influence holders that actually run the party and wish the Tea Party would dry up and go away) hate him. And the machinery to defuse his candidacy is already starting to churn.

Governor Romney will be hoisted on his own petard. Americans may have been ready to elect a black President, but a goofy Mormon in magic underwear they are not ready for. And all it will take is for the Democrats to simply publish a list of all the things he's changed his views on depending on the circumstances and the temperature. He's practically Obama-lite. Even if he does gain the nomination, and even if by some miracle he does win the election in November, people who like President Obama won't have to worry; they'll be getting the same M.O. and nothing upsetting will happen to their liberal fantasy.

Congressman Paul doesn't stand a canary's chance in a hell full of cats. Why he's even bothering is beyond anybody with half a brain at this point. It's one thing to be a libertarian (a fanciful, important-sounding philosophical apology for what basically amounts to the social economics of Ebenezer Scrooge that often appeals to people who have more education than is probably good for their limited brain capacities), but it is quite another thing to say you are a libertarian, and then pander to the trailer park rank and file by negating long-standing and legitimate libertarian views on immigration, for example. He is not only ridiculous, there's a good chance he's a quack.

Senator Santorum, rounding out the remains of the day that is the Republican field, is - to put a bow on it - categorically unelectable. He would carry South Carolina if the GOP standard bearer, because almost everybody in South Carolina is a nut job. If it weren't for the transplanted people from other places than South Carolina you could still make a case for having James Pettigru's famous take on the place as the official state motto. There isn't even any point in discussing Senator Santorum's chances, pathetic an d narrowly-based as they are. He would simply be destroyed in a general election.

Which all leads me to the conclusion that somewhere along the way the powers that be in the GOP took a look at President Obama's campaign war chest on one hand, and the nutbag Tea Party on the other hand, and said "screw you guys, we're staying home." They'll save their money for when the election is between two new names, hoping that the Tea Party will go back into the Ross Perot hole it crawled out of by then.

It's the only thing I can figure right now.