Mitt Romney: The Invisible Man:
Now that we're in the inevitable Newt Gingrich death spiral (wherein Republican voters remember that in order to vote for Newt Gingrich, they'd have to actually vote for Newt Gingrich), and we're in what will also inevitably be a quick flirtation with Ron Paulism (whose continued, crazed personal vendetta against Gingrich is one of the great spectator sports of the dying days of this awful year, like watching a hyena feast on a fat hippo corpse), we are on the verge of conservatives accepting their awful Mitt Romney-led fate.

It would simple enough to dismiss the GOP base's refusal to accept Mitt Romney as being because of the candidate's Mormonism (which, let's be fair, is no more or less insane than most other religions in its devotion to lies), but it's something more primal: they just don't like him. They understand that Romney is nothing but a suit, a very nice designer suit, but a suit without a body, a hair style without a head. Not only a robot, as he's often described (by, for instance, some stupid bloggers), he's a void, an invisible man whose attempts to make himself into a flesh and blood being only succeed in demonstrating just how hollow he is.

For instance, yesterday, on Fox "news" Sunday with Mike Wallace's unsuccessfully aborted child, Chris, Romney just came across as someone desperate not to take a real stand on anything because he's afraid a belief would inconvenience him. Look at this:

Regarding President Obama and the economy: "First of all, he was not the reason that the economy hit bottom and then begins to recover. We have gone through recessions before. He made this one worse. And he made the recovery more tepid." So, in those two sentences, Romney said that Obama didn't make the economy "hit bottom," but he made it worse, which means that he made it hit below bottom, one can presume. And Obama's not responsible for the recovery, but he's responsible for the recovery?

On Obama and the death of Osama bin Laden: "With regards to Osama bin Laden, we're delighted that he gave the order to take out Osama bin Laden, any president would have done that. But this one did and that's a good thing." He doesn't deserve credit for killing bin Laden, but let's give him credit for killing bin Laden?

And then sometimes Romney wants it all ways, like a particularly horny twink who stumbled into a leather bar. Like with regards to the war in Iraq, in which he gives the wimpiest history lesson ever: "[W]e didn't have the knowledge that we have now...And in the light of that -- that belief, we took action which was appropriate at the time. Lessons learned along the way, you know, I think our military would say a lot of lessons learned. We probably should have gone in, going in with a heavier footprint. I think there was a sense that when -- when on the ship it said 'Mission Accomplished,' that the mission had been accomplished. It turns out it was just getting started and we had to pursue a surge very late in the process. The surge was successful. And fortunately, we've now been able to pull our troops out. We're, of course, very happy to see our troops come out." But he wishes we had left behind 30,000 of them. In other words, everyone gets a pass and, hey, it's over, so a Romney administration won't have to deal with it. Next question?

Let's not even get into the brain damage or skeevy political worthlessness required to make the logical leap that Romney makes about the Massachusetts health care plan, when he says, "I like what we did. I'm proud of what we did. I'm not going to tell Texas what Texas has to do or California or New York. I think the ideas that we put forward work." You got that? The Massachusetts plan actually works (for many people). But, Texas, you come up with whatever shit plan you want so that the level of care around the country is so different that it's actually a human rights issue. All because we don't want to tell states how to treat the citizens of the country.

Of course GOP voters are desperate for whatever bits of substantial beings they can cling to so as to avoid the weightlessness of Romney. It's not just the endless parade of policy reversals throughout Romney's life (and throughout this campaign and throughout this day, more than likely). It's not that he's running with less experience as an elected official than Barack Obama or anyone else left in the Republican race (Romney was a one-term governor who announced two years into his term that he wasn't gonna run for re-election, so look for Sarah Palin's endorsement). It's not even his creepy business investment background, which just means he never got his hands dirty in real work.

It's that there's nothing there. He puts out plans that sound like every conservative ingredient tossed into a blender and then the flavor is taken out. It's like that goo that's used to make chicken nuggets. Why, sure, you can shape those into tasty square bits. You can get a box of 20 of 'em. But that doesn't mean there's anything nutritional in there.

But the invisible man is the last one standing, GOP. Or is there another?