GOP TICKET – AD-MITT NONE

The Conservative War Party at C-PAC found itself with a Romney of None on Thursday as the Massachusetts Governor rolled up his bivouac and insisted that his departure from the race was a victory for the fight against terror.

The only terror Romney was quelling with the suspension of his campaign was that of Ann Romney sitting at their kitchen table over a calculator and a stack of bank and IRA statements figuring how many more fruitless primary states would have to hand her husband the bronze medal before she had to take a cashier job at Sam’s Club.

On the way out, Romney expressed gratitude to his many far-right adherents who comprised the most unlikely political bloc since the six Jews and four African-Americans who voted for David Duke in 1992.

For the most part, the party faithful took the loss of their serial reinventionist hero stoically. American viewers of MSNBC’s “The Dan Abrams Show” were treated tonight to on-the-air gun-toting conservative radio host and Portland, Oregon’s favorite son (using, of course, the same dubious criteria that would make Tonya Harding our favorite daughter), Lars Larson, who was on hand to defend whatever enduring influence of talk radio might remain after Republican voters rebuffed an almost-rabid campaign by Messrs. and Ms’s Larson, Limbaugh, Coulter, Ingraham, O’Reilly, et. al., to cast their votes for Romney.

Fellow guests, progressive radio host Rachel Madow and The New Republic‘s David Beinhart, did everything but roll their eyes and make masturbation gestures as Larson insisted that he held no ill will against his listeners who chose not to vote for Romney and that his job as a radio talk show host was merely to give his listeners information and let them come to their own conclusions. For the last several weeks, as a McCain anointment became increasingly a fait accompli, that “information” basically boiled down to the contention that John McCain has put a bullet hole in the soul of America, and if you elect him President, he’ll stick his penis in the exit wound–and nominate Cindy Sheehan to the Supreme Court.

I guess I’ve missed his column on DailyKos or his guns-for-abortion-vouchers exchange program, but I never got the memo that red-blooded, Red State war hero John McCain had turned yellow and pinko. I thought the GOP tethered their own better than that. The last mainstream Republican I remember straying so far off the reservation and coming out in favor of abortion and gays in the military was Ted Kennedy’s opponent in his 1994 Senate race. His name escapes me now, but…oh, I remember: Mitt Romney.

Lest anyone get the impression that Romney is a dreaded flip-flopper like his fellow Bay Staters John Kerry and Michael Dukakis, Joe Scarborough disabused that notion with a unique defense of Romney’s evolving positions: The last time he flipped, he flopped on the Right side. Republican Roulette, in other words.

As for his future plans, Romney was already turned away at Democratic National Committee headquarters Thursday morning in his bid to toss his hat in the ring for the potentially-stalemated Democratic nomination, with the Democrats citing, among other things, byzantine nominating rules that prevent a vanquished Republican candidate from trying to buy his way into the race with his pledged Republican delegates.

Coming off his big caucus win there Tuesday, Romney also submitted an offer in tender to purchase North Dakota and the U.S. Senate seat of Kent Conrad. State officials, who conceded they could use the money, said they were consulting with their attorneys and the United States Government to explore the legality and feasibility of such an offer.

MEAN HO’ DEAN: In other news, DNC Chairman Howard Dean attempted to flex his muscle in a way he hasn’t since he screamed his way to a third-place finish in Iowa in 2004. With the spectre of a brokered Clinton-Obama convention looming, he promised that before the delegates and candidates land in Denver in August, he’ll bring both sides together and “knock some heads” and get one side or the another to bow out and pledge their support for the other. Governor Dean has had delusions of grandeur before, so he might be forgiven for thinking for a moment that he was Terry McAuliffe, but if he really is able to ever convene such a meeting, the only head likely to get knocked is his own.