I’ve been musing on the lack-luster condition of the Republican nominating processes as it currently stands. And I’ve been looking forward. All I can see is the problems, with one slim ray of hope at the end. We stand in a unique position to run this socialist poser and his Democrats out of town, but we are blowing it. Here’s what we’ve got:

Mitt Romney: The default establishment candidate due to the establishment’s Huntsman-farce falling apart before it started. He has money and organization. He is pretty. He is the ultimate insider pretending to be an outsider. Of him the establishment says, “Well, at least he made the Olympics run on time.” He is the ultimate moderate candidate striving for nomination in a conservative world. He bangs the drum of family values but don’t you dare say “Mormon” while doing that. He is polished and poised and feels he is the one and only one who can beat Obama and the Karl Roves and National Reviews of the world have been doing their best to convince us of that from the beginning. According to the bosses at the RNC it’s Romney’s turn to run. Why? Because we say so. However, a funny thing happened on his way to the nomination. He has peaked in the conservative polls at around 20% and can’t seem to break through that barrier, probably because he is the grandfather of Obamacare, which he steadfastly refuses to abandon and is a global warming geek. True, he has promised to destroy Obamacare under a strained Federalism argument, trying unsuccessfully to walk both sides of how it’s just dandy for Massechusettes (it isn’t by the way; it’s an abject failure) but can’t be tolerated nationally. He has also rejected “Cap and Trade” but how can one intellectually do so, if one embraces the well-debunked myth that manmade global warming is destroying humanity? To top it all off, Obama’s minions have made it clear Romney is the one they want to run against. While he is in reality about 80% of what conservatives want in a candidate, it’s that other 20% that will keep conservatives from having anything to do with him.

Newt Gingrich: with Reagan and Buckley, Gingrich is one of the fathers of modern conservatism but is rejected by the most fanatic of the conservative movement, and perhaps rightfully so. Of the course of his long and sometime distinguished political career Newt has been the one and only one who has ever actually CUT government spending. He has recently joked that Romney is rich because of Gingrich’s work in harnessing government. He is the latest in the series of “Not Romneys” to vault to the front of the heap but this one seems to have more legs than the others. He is glib and overwhelmingly intelligent. He is crafty and knows well which levers to pull behind the curtain to manipulate government. He is a good debater and attacks Obama’s media wing adroitly. But then there’s all the baggage. Over the course of his public service he has said about everything one can say, on both sides of each issue. He has a string of failed marriages, begging the question of just how important that is, or isn’t, but certainly is important to Romney, who paints the contrast, and to Christian conservatives. The implicit question is “if he can cheat on his wife(ves) why won’t he cheat on us?” Yet he is enjoying a conservative wave now. He appeared before the so-called leaders of the conservative/tea party movement in the last few days and while receiving some pointed questioning, in the end he enjoyed a standing ovation from them. Besides his personal foibles and his believed flip-flops, he has real problems in lack of money and lack of organization. A recent story suggested he may not even be able to get on the key Ohio ballot because of that.

Ron Paul: Holding down the far right flank with the same verve of Davy Crockett holding down the Alamo, Ron Paul, the Libertarian who would be a Republican, has managed to nail down a 15-18% stake, at least in some Iowa polls. He is consistently far right. So far right it makes rightists uncomfortable. His followers are unswerving in the support and admiration and fight to the last breath in Dr. Paul’s defense. But he has reached his high water mark. Congressman Paul may very well win the Iowa caucuses because, well because they are caucuses, not votes, and rely on manpower to deliver the faithful to the caucus sites. His volunteers are very good at that and showing up to yell at debates, and to stuff the straw polls. Paul’s intelligence and commitment are unquestionable. But the only people who get a tingle down their leg with what he is saying are those who want to go back to the gold standard, isolationists, strict constructionists and others who are stuck in the gilded age of the 1890s. He has no mass appeal and will never have. No one beyond the denizens of the forums know or understand him and he has no mass media appeal. On TV, he looks like the funny old guy with the old-fashioned ideas.

Rick Perry: of the also-rans, Perry stands out for 17 million reasons. His war chest can keep him in the battle and Texas has a lot of delegates. He is actually a very good candidate but the conservatives buried him over the illegal alien tuition issue and have falsely branded him an amnesty guy, despite Sheriff Arpaio’s recent endorsement. He is making a bit of a comeback but probably too little, too late.

Also rans: Bachmann (too shrill, too kooky, talks to fast), Santorum (yawn), etc. Please just get out of the way. It’s over.

The Point (finally): On top of this great confusion lies the eternal suspicion/mistrust we conservatives harbor. We have been burned so many times we tend to trust no one and get excited about no one. On the left side, there is no Democrat primary fight so many dems are free to cross over in the primaries and vote for whomever they see as the weakest GOP candidate. Absent the money problem, I see a chance of the nomination going into the convention unresolved. After a ballot or two there the delegates will be released. If a deal is not cut (politics make strange bed-fellows) then an open convention is free to nominate the one true unifier of the right: Sarah Palin.

But I can dream can’t I?

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Randall Mead is a simple, country lawyer, scratching out a living in the belly of the beast, the capital of Madiganistan.