And So It Comes To This

"This" being, of course, Romney vs. Gingrich. Hermain Cain is dead as a candidate, long live Herman Cain as a talk show host or something. Huntsman, Santorum, Gary Johnson, and a whole host of others were never appreciably alive. Bachmann is as lifeless as they are, though she at least had a heartbeat for a while. Ron Paul will get his usual 13% when all's said and done, no more, no less, because thirteen percent of Republicans actually agree with him; he's never been running to win. And Rick Perry, well, he cratered a while back, this latest miscue forecloses any possibility of a comeback, and, uh, I forgot the third thing. (Sorry, I think that's legally obligatory right now.) So we're left with Romney/Gingrich. Intrade has Romney at around 70% odds to win, and Gingrich around 13%, with the rest going to various others who are at this point basically demised. Personally I like Newt at those odds. Two national primary polls have been released that were in the field after this past Sunday: they show the Romney minus Gingrich margin at four points and zero points: that says toss-up. Off the top of my head I can't see why the remaining sixty to seventy percent of Republicans not currently backing one of these two would mostly break toward Romney; perhaps they will, but perhaps they won't.

In any event, Romney's finally going to have to fight. Notice how his strategy for dealing with Trump, with Bachmann, with Perry, and now finally with Cain has been to stand back, stay quiet, and let them immolate themselves. (Of course, his strategy for dealing with Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty, etc. has been to stand back, stay quiet, and watch them decline to run.) He can't beat Gingrich without getting into the ring. Unlike all Romney's other foes, Gingrich can talk. Coherently. About national policy issues. Hell, he's even kind of a wonk, though of course he's a wonk who's wrong about everything. This is probably good for the Republicans, because Romney would certainly have to fight against Obama and if they just nominated him by the acclimation of the corpses of rival campaigns strewed around him, they wouldn't know if he was a competent fighter. They still don't; presumably Gingrich will help us all find out. Obviously I hope Gingrich wins, since the American people already know that they violently dislike Newt. But at last we've found the real Republican primary. Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich: pick a side, we're at war.