Gordon Forgey: Last man standing?

The Republicans are trying to decide who to run against Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election.

They have variously embraced Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry as alternatives to front runner Mitt Romney. Each of these has had time in the sun, and each has been anointed as the most popular “anybody-but-Romney” candidate.

Soon, they fall out of favor. The party’s love affair with them does not last long. It is more like a one night stand than a relationship. The new favorite candidate’s rise pretty much matches the sure-to-follow fall. They are both fast and steep.

Then, as the dust clears, Mitt Romney, who has been the presumptive Republican nominee for months, seems to be the party’s most viable choice. But, as the pundits put it, Romney just cannot close the deal, and a new favorite is found.

As a result, Romney has been the target for nearly every Republican candidate. He has been beaten up by his fellow Republicans, and, in many ways, he has been seriously tarnished.

Some Republicans say this is all for the good. He will be stronger when he faces President Obama. Political wisdom maybe, but his favorability numbers keep dropping, and many see him in less a positive light than before his fellow party members took to pummeling him.

Now, Rick Santorum is edging ahead of Romney in the polls. This week the CBS/New York Times poll puts him as the leading Republican candidate, a few points ahead of Romney.

Santorum’s time in front of the pack may be as brief as that of all the others. Anybody-but-Romney may be the party’s choice, but it is running out of candidates from which to choose.

While the Republicans discredit one another, Obama’s approval ratings continue to climb, now at 50 percent and rising with the tide of the improving economy.

The fight among the Republican candidates has centered on two things: which candidate is the truest conservative and which is the most electable.

The first won’t matter much if the last man standing is so bruised and discredited by its party’s own hands that the second becomes moot.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher