Image via WikipediaThis is where we are in the Republicans' determining who gets to challenge President Barack Obama one year from now. As the song goes, they still haven't found what they're looking for. Or they say they haven't.Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is the front-runner who's considered the best candidate to defeat Obama. But no one seems to like him much. For a GOP dominated by Tea Party conservatives and evangelicals, Romney's Mormonism and comparatively moderate political stance is a turnoff to them. So who else is there?
Herman Cain, who used to run a pizza chain, has been hogging the political spotlight since winning a straw poll in Florida a few weeks ago. Cain has no prior experience in politics, but he does seem to have a knack for telling the other candidates where to get off, which might come in handy should he ever decide to work for Fox News. But his "9-9-9" plan to stimulate the economy, which is one part lower corporate tax rate, one part flat tax and one part national sales tax, does nothing to solve the rift between the rich versus everybody else.
Rick Perry, currently Governor of Texas, is fading in the polls because of his poor debate performances, and because of controversies the other candidates have helpfully been pointing out. Such as Perry's executive order mandating HPV shots for teenage girls to protect against cervical cancer (which he now wishes he hadn't done). And then there's the Perry family retreat, which was purchased from the original owner who had named the property with a word starting with the letter "N", which also happens to be the mother of all racial slurs.
Michele Bachmann, sixth-district Congresswoman from Minnesota, is still in the race--just barely. As the campaign money disappears and staffers are fleeing the sinking ship, Bachmann presses on in Iowa hoping for a miracle in the upcoming caucuses. Now that her Tea Party supporters have moved on to Perry, Bachmann's numbers are dipping into the single digits along with Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsmann and Ron Paul. It's just a matter of time.
As the Republicans find their Cinderella among the Seven Dwarf's (with apologies to Snow White, Disney and the vertically challenged), the pool for finding their prince (or princess) is getting shallower. Sarah Palin and New Jersey governor Chris Christie have declare themselves unavailable after having dithered for so long. Anybody else contemplating a run now would either be brave or foolhardy. But through all this, Mitt Romney has been right there. The Republicans may have already found their knight in shining armor right under their noses, and they don't even know it.
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