GOP contender - Romney

Mitt Romney is a classic wealthy. How dare you mere reporter point out my bullshit! "Listen to my words." Romney believes in his own divine right even if he has to wear special underwear. Mitt has plenty of money, which helps him cover the fact that he has trouble with message discipline (though still much better than Huckabee's). Since he's had control of the business agenda his whole career, he's convinced that he can say the most ridiculous things without the people he hasn't laid off calling him on it.

I once worked for a company whose CEO sent a voicemail to the whole company saying that he would rather choke to death on his own vomit than sell to a certain software bottom-feeder. Three months later, he did sell out to that exact company. Oh, he had hedged that he would almost prefer asphyxia. Really, aspiration drove him, either way. Jimi Hendrix, no thank you. Walk away with $290 million, giddy-up!

Mitt would never say anything as plebeian as that. Jeepers Crow, no. But situational lying is a necessary skill in the rarefied heights of companies such as Bain that profit by deal-making instead of making products. "We really want to make this deal, but there are a couple of problems." Yeah, and one of those problems is we're really buying your competition, but we want our competition to pay a premium price for you.

Mitt won't mention bodily fluids, no, but he is more than happy to make obviously stupid, pandering, and anti-Constitutional appeals to the bullies. "Double Guantánamo," for example. The bullies aren't very smart, so they'll buy it.

So here we are. The heretic Mormon with no common touch and the glaring willingness to transparently lie and bullshit is the only contender who hasn't queered the deal with the most important three Republican constituencies. Even though he has a long history of previous lies and bullshit to appease us in Massachusetts ("I'm prochoice", "I'm moderate", "I'm for universal health coverage"), he has tried to atone for those, and the fundies will have nowhere else to go, other than to stay home, so most of them will rationalize the gaping doctrinal chasm.

The only barrier that lies between Romney and the nomination is the Republican Party's appetite for more bullshit. Since Duhbya still pulls 30% in the polls, and those are the people who will vote in Republican primaries, I think they're licking their chops. It's Romney's to lose.