J. Crew

Jesus. Who saw that one coming? Besides Jesus, I mean. The Bible Belt stepped up big tonight for God’s other favorite son, Mike Huckabee, and delivered an Old Testament smiting to Mitt Romney and the heretic adherents of his bastard religion. Either that or God was just flat tired of Romney voting against Christian values before he voted for them.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair to Romney with big numbers still swinging his way in Colorado and……well, Montana is looking pretty good. If Bozeman breaks for the Massachusetts Governor, that could well have a ripple effect and maybe even entice the western Unabomber bloc to cast a vote–maybe even for Romney–when they come into town for canned chili and ammunition. If that happens, the state’s 25 delegates are his to lose.

Mike Huckabee is going to be the big story going into Wednesday, though. Things are settling as I write this, and Missouri is coming down to the wire between Huckabee and McCain; Tennessee has gone for Huckabee, along with West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas; and McCain has just officially handed Romney his well-groomed head in California. Mitt heads home tomorrow with his lovely parting gifts: Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and his home state of Massachusetts. In a Presidential contest, that and $1.50 will buy you a Sunday paper. Thanks for playing, Governor.

The Breaking News on MSNBC says that tomorrow will be a day of “FRANK DISCUSSIONS” (their caps, not mine) within the Romney campaign. From that, I can only assume that “Frank” is Romney’s Deputy Campaign Manager in Charge of Logistics who’s going to send the pink slip email to all of the campaign staffers and see if he can get their rent pro-rated in their campaign offices if they hand in the keys by the end of business Wednesday.

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ROMNEY SONS ENDORSE MCCAIN

Jesus. Who saw that one coming? Besides Jesus, I mean. The Bible Belt stepped up big tonight for God’s other favorite son, Mike Huckabee, and delivered an Old Testament smiting to Mitt Romney and the heretic adherents of his bastard religion. Either that or God was just flat tired of Romney voting against Christian values before he voted for them.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair to Romney with big numbers still swinging his way in Colorado and……well, Montana is looking pretty good. If Bozeman breaks for the Massachusetts Governor, that could well have a ripple effect and maybe even entice the western Unabomber bloc to cast a vote–maybe even for Romney–when they come into town for canned chili and ammunition. If that happens, the state’s 25 delegates are his to lose.

Mike Huckabee is going to be the big story going into Wednesday, though. Things are settling as I write this, and Missouri is coming down to the wire between Huckabee and McCain; Tennessee has gone for Huckabee, along with West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas; and McCain has just officially handed Romney his well-groomed head in California. Mitt heads home tomorrow with his lovely parting gifts: Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and his home state of Massachusetts. In a Presidential contest, that and $1.50 will buy you a Sunday paper. Thanks for playing, Governor.

The Breaking News on MSNBC says that tomorrow will be a day of “FRANK DISCUSSIONS” (their caps, not mine) within the Romney campaign. From that, I can only assume that “Frank” is Romney’s Deputy Campaign Manager in Charge of Logistics who’s going to send the pink slip email to all of the campaign staffers and see if he can get their rent pro-rated in their campaign offices if they hand in the keys by the end of business Wednesday.

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ROMNEVORES

Anyone still thinking the Republicans would have a unified, cooler-headed moment of clarity after the Mitt Romney-John McCain scorched earth exhibition at the last GOP debate could most charitably be assumed to be dipping their wetted fingers into the same punchbowl-sized mortar as Rush Limbaugh.

As the Republican establishment and pundit mafia shared a collective Chief Inspector Drefyuss-worthy apoplectic twitch at the increasing inevitability of Senator John McCain becoming the party’s standard-bearer, a brash, swaggering McCain strutted through the electoral landscape on the eve of Super Tuesday, assessing the terrain as if it were his choice and his choice alone where he’s going to slay Governor Romney and scatter his remains. His good-natured and eminently-likable toady, Governor Mike Huckabee, meanwhile, was busy glomming like a leach onto the few remaining veins on the body politic from which Romney could have hoped to draw a few pints of blood for a desperately needed transfusion.

The Republican junior officers and rank-and-file are beside themselves, knowing there’s little chance they might frag their presumptive new CO, much less his boyish lieutenant who’s gleefully skipping from one Romney opportunity to another, tossing live grenades into the middle of the crowd. On Dan Abrams’ prime-time segment tonight on MSNBC, you could see Pat Buchanan’s combed-over strands wilting from the rising steam as he watched the electoral map turn McCain Red and Huckabee Salmon, until he finally blurted in frustration that a Romney nomination would be a real possibility if it weren’t for the Huckabee drain of votes from Romney all throughout the southern contests. Mary Matalin voiced a similar frustration yesterday on NBC’s “Meet The Press”, even at one point calling the former Arkansas Governor “selfish”. Rush Limbaugh abandoned all pretense of elegance when he railed against Senator Lindsey Graham, the turncoat who helped deliver South Carolina for John McCain, that the South Carolinian is “certainly close enough to John McCain to die of anal poisoning”.

Mathematically, it’s not impossible that Romney hops up off the gurney and rushes triumphantly back into the game like Warren Beatty’s resurrected Joe Pendleton in “Heaven Can Wait”. Rush, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and the rest of the right-wing radio Scream Team are exhorting their millions of listeners to pull the lever for Romney and praying for a benevolent God to stuff the Arizona Senator back into any cage as far removed from a U.S. voting precinct as humanly possible.

Of course, they have the numbers. Mary Matalin pointed out on “Meet The Press” that Limbaugh’s audience is larger than all the voters who have cast ballots so far this primary season. It’s their commitment and pragmatism that aren’t fully sussed out at this point. In polling and any discussion where common sense hasn’t been checked at the door, there hasn’t been any serious, plausible indication that Mitt Romney wouldn’t get peeled like an onion in the general election. There isn’t a moment of footage from Romney’s 1994 Senatorial run against Ted Kennedy that isn’t sitting in a heavily guarded Democratic strategist’s safe right now. It would be one of the most delectable Chinese menus the Democrats have ever had in a general election: “Mmmm, I’ll take the tax hikes from Column A, and could I have the defense of gays in the military from Column B, please?”

For all their anti-Muslim rhetoric, there’s a distinctly Jihadist rebellion percolating within the party. Much like the shrill African-Americans on Stephanie Miller last week who pledged to vote for Mitt Romney if the now “racist” Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, there’s a lot of dark talk on the right of the rain of blood and severed limbs that will come down upon the party if McCain is chosen to head the ticket this fall. Ann Coulter last week tore off her blouse to reveal her explosive vest on “Hannity and Colmes” last week, threatening to pull the lever for Hillary and claim her 72 virgins if the Republicans don’t do the right thing and scoop up the circling-the-drain Romney.

Mike Huckabee’s endgame here is a Vice Presidential nod from John McCain. Well, Jesus Christ will sooner come back and declare all the fossils at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History plaster fakes before that happens. Granted, he’s a charming and well-spoken man, but as soon as he starts his fright-wing pontificating about rewriting the United States Constitution “in God’s standards” and measuring the age of the earth in quadruple digits, even most decent, mainstream Christians will refuse to appear on television without a digital black bar over their eyes.

Romney’s likely demise is only one story that’s going to be dominating the airwaves and the blogosphere today. It’s going to be a deliciously-long day for America’s armchair politicos as the polls start to open on the east coast.

KETTLES ONLY. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO POTS: One of the most amusing developing narratives to watch today is MSNBC’s cautionary advice to watch how the media spins tonight’s results and to take everything with a grain of salt. Sage counsel indeed, as long as they’re including themselves in the day-long onslaught of oft-partisan coverage and dervish-like spin.