Nominee Romney

See, its so fated that it even rhymes. Just watched the Ron Paul v. Gingrich/Santorum/Perry debate in which Mittens Romney huffed and puffed and stayed the hell back as his "opponents" ripped each other to shreds. 

The only one really taking Romney to task at all was Jon Huntsman, who is the only credible general election candidate on the stage with Romney, and who displayed a tempered traditional conservative philosophy that is at odds with the modern Republican party that has abandoned its traditional roots in a similar way to the Democratic party abandoning its traditional Southern conservatism in the 60s and 70s.

As for the de facto GOP nominee, it amazes me that for such a poll tested mealy mouthed candidate, he's still holding on to the tired and outdated support for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.  Nearly all the national polls show the American people warming towards, or outright supporting, gay marriage in a rather dramatic fashion considering anti-sodomy laws were on the books and being enforced less than a decade ago.  Of course, this my be one of Mittens few actual beliefs, given his closer ties to the LDS Mormon church compared to the more distanced Jon Huntsman, but regardless, it just seems somewhat surprising to me that national politicians at this stage in the game still think its alright to support drafting bigotry into the US Constitution.

As for the rest of the debate, it was largely a rehash of all the previous policy idiocy we've come to know and love from the modern Republican party with a special shout out to the Ricks on the stage whose unparallelled foreign policy belligerence would make Genghis Khan blush.  Mittens continued to set the stage for his general election campaign in which he'll subtly (and sometimes less subtly) question the President's American credentials (and who better than a member of a religion based upon the concept of American exceptionalism to do so).  Professor Chickenhawk Gingrich played to the New Hampshire crowd by plugging in some references to local issues, points to him on that.  Ron Paul did a good job dressing down Gingrich on his gleeful desire to send young men and women to an early grave despite his unwillingness to risk his porky hide when given the opportunity. And finally Jon Huntsman played to the Independents of New Hampshire, along with the handful of remaining sane moderates who haven't been shamed into dropping their GOP affiliation, by presenting a non-bigoted, actual conservative viewpoint on American power...or in other words, continued to distance himself from the vast majority of today's Republican voters.