The GOP's desperate hunt for anyone but Mitt Romney

Herman Cain unravels. Rick Perry stumbles. And Republicans keep praying that someone will rescue them from the flip-flopping Romney

I wish we could set aside Herman Cain, his economically insane 9-9-9 plan, and his pathetically inane responses to charges of sexual harassment — responses which have lurched from indignation and amnesia to contradiction and continued cover up. 

The Cain super-PAC weighed in this week with a fundraising letter headlined: "Don't let the left 'lynch' another black conservative." A comparison to Clarence Thomas isn't particularly helpful here — except with very hardcore Cain supporters who may stick with him anyway. And their reaction makes sense: If you believe climate change is a myth, then you can believe Cain is qualified to be president. 

Ignoring Cain is appealing because, in plain, hard truth, there's simply no possibility that he will ever become commander-in-chief. He just said China is "a potential military threat" because "they're trying to develop nuclear capability." China did that — half a century ago. Not just on economics or national security, but on issues generally — for example, he's proposed "a moat" filled with "alligators" on the Mexican border — Cain is a profile in ignorance. 

Romney's slouching his way toward the nomination — and a disgruntled party will finally surrender to him unless a new Perry emerges who transcends bromides and buffoonery on the stump and befuddlement in the debates.

Maybe tea is a hallucinogen; maybe the GOP is demented — and it will nominate him anyway. If that happened, it's certain that President Obama would win by even more then he did in 2008. 

But there's also another explanation for the rise of Cain — and that's why I have to write about him. He's the latest in a procession of preposterous Republican candidates who have soared across the party's firmament — but in the cases of Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, already crashed out of the race or collapsed into single digits. Along with the serial sideshows of Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, and Haley Barbour, which closed before opening, this melodrama (and it often manifests itself as farce), is a verdict on the once and probably future frontrunner. The GOP's primary voters have been relentlessly looking for Mr. Un-Romney. 

The establishment may have settled on Mitt Romney, however grudgingly; but even in its inner precincts there are holdouts. George Will, one of the most thoughtful of conservative columnists, calls Romney "the pretzel candidate...a recidivist reviser of principles who is... becoming less electable." Will's right to be on guard — and so are the recalcitrant Republicans who so far have refused to fall in line. That's why Romney can't cross the 25 percent benchmark in primary polls. 

Republican nominee Mitt Romney is still the likely outcome, but the question nags: Who is this guy? And it seems that question won't go away — not only in the contest for the nomination, but in a general election in which the Obama campaign will hold Romney's flip-flops to the fire.