A.B. Stoddard

There was nothing inevitable about Mitt Romney on Tuesday night. And should he lose any other significant primary contests in the weeks to come, he won’t be the most electable, either. Indeed, Romney’s humiliating defeats in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado this week have blown a potentially fatal hole in the argument that the least-conservative candidate would be embraced by the GOP’s conservative base because they simply have no choice. 

Championing subsidized kosher meals and a U.S. colony on the moon didn’t exactly vault Newt Gingrich to victory over Mitt Romney in the Sunshine State this week. As his candidacy self-destructed for a third time, turning a 12-point win in South Carolina to a 14-point loss in Florida in just 10 days, the relentless warrior promised a priceless gift to officials at the Democratic National Committee. He plans to contest every coming election, win them and be the nominee in Tampa this August.

President Obama kicked off his reelection campaign Tuesday from the rostrum of the House of Representatives with good news and bad news. He started with his things-could-be-worse message on the economy but warned that even with 22 months of job growth, the return of the domestic auto industry and an encouraging turnaround in manufacturing, the middle class could still wash out to sea.

Mitt Romney's many money gaffes are a political ad-maker’s dream.

Mitt Romney, the misfit of the 2012 Republican Party, made history Tuesday by becoming the first GOP candidate to win both the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses. The former Massachusetts governor is poised, with numerous Republicans still working to plot a fatal ambush, to make history again next week by securing a trifecta and winning South Carolina. 

Should former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) win the Republican nomination for president, the fiery revolutionary seeking to “fundamentally” transform almost everything will have upended the political system anew. Unlike Gingrich’s successful revolution of 1994, his battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in 2012 might not lead to the White House. But his nomination would overhaul the Grand Old Party, altering it in unexpected and unprecedented ways, and Gingrich would make history once again.

Despite frenzied prognostications from the political commentariat about Newt Gingrich’s inadequate war chest, lack of an actual campaign operation in the early voting states, potential absence from key ballots and even burdensome debt, they matter little as long as the former House Speaker continues to snooker GOP voters into thinking he can beat President Obama.

Republicans will surely enjoy the latest poll results placing President Obama’s approval at a record low for any president at this point in his term in the modern, polled era. But the comfort they will take in Obama’s new achievement, considering all else, is stone-cold.

Come Monday, it will be all right. Because that’s when the supercommittee must complete its proposal to cut the bare minimum of $1.2 trillion and send it to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring to meet its Nov. 23 deadline. We know how badly the 12 members of the panel wish to fulfill their obligation, to succeed where countless debt commissions have failed and to avert another credit downgrade. And we know they are desperate to assure voters that Congress still functions, that policy comes before politics, that our leaders aren’t ignoring the chilling lessons of Greece and Italy and that they simply won’t abide another punt and let another year worsen our fiscal crisis just to wait for the next election.

The global economic picture darkens by the hour as Europe struggles to contain a spiraling debt crisis, while the U.S. Congress watches the clock on an impending deadline for our own fiscal rescue. Yet all eyes are on the unfolding drama of a GOP presidential candidate, waiting to see if the delightful story of Herman Cain will meet an ugly end.