A.B. Stoddard

President Obama’s long national evolution is over. His bewildering, bungled admission that he now supports marriage for same-sex couples, after a lengthy “evolution” expedited by another Joe Biden gaffe, was an embarrassing episode he won’t want to repeat.

In two weeks Mitt Romney has transformed from a weakened front-runner whose prospects this fall have worried Republicans across the board to a nominee-in-waiting at parity in polls with President Obama. The narrative of Romney’s deficit with conservative as well as independent voters — a result of an extended ugly primary — has shifted as his popularity has suddenly surged with both. At least for now.

Shockwaves rippled through Washington this week when the Senate Budget Committee chairman announced he would propose an annual budget resolution and hold a committee vote on it. Gasp! Yet the split-second spasm of regular order soon gave way to paralysis when Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) decided that governing was indeed too difficult in an election year.

The Fair Shot-Fair Share-Fundamental Choice tour is set to crisscross the nation, President Obama admitted this week. After taxpayers paid for it to hit Florida on Tuesday, it took to the podium Wednesday at the White House, with special guest millionaires and their assistants. Obama’s pitch to pass the “Buffett Rule” has its own website, catchy title, celebrity advocates and Twitter handle. Bumper stickers and T-shirts can’t be far behind.

Irony alert — President Obama gets a boost no matter what the Supreme Court decides on his politically toxic healthcare reform law.

Somewhere, buried in Rick Santorum’s fatally flawed campaign messaging, were winning words. Had he committed to them, the former senator could have derailed Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP nomination. Despite Romney’s overpowering resources and organization, Santorum’s potent argument — that the party could not throw the issue of healthcare away by nominating someone who had supported mandates — was his key to victory, but he threw it away.

Republican voters know all about the disappointing ending; they have flipped to the last page of the book — Mitt Romney somehow becomes the party’s candidate for president. It’s all over but the fighting. But tell that to fuming GOP primary voters who are far from finished with their seven stages of grief. Those crafting new chapters for the story are making it colorful, climactic, lengthy, expensive and ugly. Someone should tell them soon that the only thing worse than the Mitt they have now is one that’s beaten, battered and broke.

Sure, Mitt Romney can take comfort in his victories Tuesday night: Cheating political death is better than the alternative. But there are ample, shiny silver linings for his challenger, Rick Santorum, in the primary results — enough to keep the dull ache of worry alive in Republicans for weeks, if not months, to come. The Santorum surge might have ended, but his campaign continues. It will further diminish Romney, highlighting his weaknesses, costing him money and momentum and calling his heretofore first-rate organization and financial advantages into question.

Members of Congress fled Washington once more last week, eager to get home and explain yet again why spending keeps going up, along with voter outrage, and little else is getting accomplished at the U.S. Capitol.

If there is one thing Mitt Romney has learned from the 2012 GOP nominating contest, it is that months of strategic planning, shrewd resource management and unrivaled organization can be torpedoed in 72 hours by a surging rival. Voters who don’t trust Romney have amassed an impressive record of challenging his dominance in the primary race at several critical turns, and within one swift week have now robbed Romney of his firewall in Michigan.