Romney's real test

Charles P. Pierce has a certain talent for tart prose, and from him we would expect nothing less than the following. He puts it as it is:

Willard Romney has made a great effort over the past two days, butching himself up in spiked shoulder pads and hollering for mead and slave women, in order to "get back" what he'd never truly lost in the first place. Yes, he looked like a jackass in South Carolina. In any sane political party, he'd be allowed to brag about that. Now, though, he's back running in a state that he can carpet-bomb with money, which he will use to explain again how he's the only one of this troupe of buffoons who even halfway looks like a president. He's outspent Newt Gingrich five-to-one in a state where all campaigning is done tarmac-to-tarmac. He's always been the candidate best suited to take advantage of the twisted new landscape of campaign finance, and to take advantage of the fact the most of his party is out of its mind. He's always been the only one of them operating within the fundamentally overlooked twin realities of this campaign.

The test comes afterwards, though. I fear we're now in for a fearsome period of reality-detached spin. The Republican "Establishment" — although having bottom-feeding slugs like Matt Drudge, indicted crooks like Tom DeLay, superannuated media harpies like Ann Coulter, and Bob Dole, The Vengeful Undead, for your "establishment" illustrates another story about Republicans that's worth a second look, but won't get it — has lined up impressively behind Willard Romney, who has abnegated himself impressively enough just to make that happen.

"Superannuated media harpies" — Ann Coulter, yes.  My thoughts exactly. It's becoming ever more difficult to suppress the notion that Romney is little more than an inept opportunist, able to pounce on Newt Gingrich's lack of support among women, among other weaknesses. If Romney can't take down a womanizing, overly-ambitious, charmless sleaze-ball like Newt Gingrich in a state like Florida, he shouldn't be in this business.

(Image: "Mitt Romney said Gingrich ‘‘hasn’t been successful connecting with the people of Florida...because of his message." Charles Dharapak/Associated Press, via The Boston Globe)