In the beginning, to view the GOP candidates at their first debate podiums...Tommy Thompson, Brownback, Gilmore, Hunter...was to believe you had stumbled across some deleted country club ballroom scene from Caddyshack. You half expected to see Ted Knight standing there in a crested blazer sipping a vodkatini and muttering about green speeds.

Then, one night in Iowa for no apparent reason, Alan Keyes was on the stage. Yammering and gesturing like Sammy Davis Jr.'s evil twin about the perils of rational thought.

And for a brief period Fred Thompson bestrode the land like a colossus...then he entered the race. Yet now, without ever once tooling the back roads in his pickup to rally the multitudes to his call for...uh...something, he has lain down his burden.

Yes, your party may be in trouble when its most principled candidate is Ron Paul...and he believes Abraham Lincoln was a rotten president.

Which leaves............

MITT ROMNEY

All you have to do to know that Romney is a prick is look at him. It requires a certain kind of transcendent scumbagness to take genuine offense when your own words are quoted back to you.

Yet it's not nearly as troubling to hear The Gelled Hedge Funder babble on about the great good greatness of our shining hills and seas as it is to think of the collective IQ of those for whom this constitutes a reason to support him.

Though it was quite a "Paris is worth a mass" moment to see the candidate who believes the Garden of Eden was in Missouri attempt to reassure those who believe there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark that he shares their values.

MIKE HUCKABEE

The swingin' preacher, always ready to lay down a funky base line or a self-deprecating quip, has voiced some genuinely un-Republican views about the plight of the poor. Unfortunately, he has also voiced some genuinely unconstitutional views about the meaning of the Establishment Clause and some genuinely unhinged views about the age of the earth.

RUDY GIULIANI

The original first responder, who parlayed authoritatively walking through rubble into a sleazy personal fortune.

Apparently, if he wins Florida Rudy will grab a bible and rush to the West Front of the Capitol to swear himself in. Yet while the media is intent on focusing on the pros or cons of his strategy, shouldn't someone take a moment to ponder his maniacally brutal vindictiveness.
Tested..Ready..Now...hopefully refers to the involuntary commitment papers.

JOHN McCAIN

The candidate Democrats must fear to face...so goes the conventional wisdom. And like all conventional wisdom it fails to answer the only question that matters...why?

In 2000 when he was at his best, McCain's "rogue state rollback" was an idea even Augustus would have found unworkable. Since then he has done nothing but abandon principles and kiss George Bush's ass.

So...a candidate whose idea of leadership is standing up to Donald Rumsfeld, who wants to stay in Iraq for a hundred years, who sees an endorsement by Joe Lieberman as a plus...this is someone to be feared?

Maybe...if the Democrats were stupid enough to nominate someone tied to the past, devoid of scruple and unfamiliar with truth, whose only absolute devotion was to maintaining power...but they'd never do that.