Looking at Mitt Romney before Iowa

The Republican presidential race is heating up and it looks like the inevitable will indeed happen: that the anti-Mitt forces have run out of candidates and the GOP will anoint Romney to be their man. Romney argues he is the most electable. He may be but only because the other candidates--for the most part--are just absolute morons or too tainted by their own despicable pasts.

The Democrats have been gearing up to face Romney from the get go and Mitt will have some problems (not completely insurmountable):

• "Man of the people" candidates don't own five homes, offer to bet people $10K and refuse to release their taxes. And when the pressure hits to release those forms, it will work against him if he does or doesn't.

•The Democrats have an arsenal of ads ready to run against Mitt: his own. They have every ad he ever ran while running for Senate and Governor and will juxtapose them with his positions today. Whatever one thinks about his politics, the subtext is pretty clear: Mitt will say anything to get elected.

• His religion is still an unknown. I find it curious that there seems more discussion about his religion now than there was when his father ran. The media more serious look at the Mormon Church and its positions on some issues, specifically its political activities in California as well as its very late to the party moves on racial and gender discrimination. I also think evangelicals will have a hard time holding their nose and voting for him when they don't trust him politically either.

• Any Republican candidate--not just Romney--will have to answer some serious economic questions. Obama might "own" this economy but it was the GOP and Bush that got us here. The GOP candidate will have to answer what he/she would have done different from what Bush did and what he/she will do to get us out of it. I doubt even this ineffective and lame MSM (Fox News notwithstanding) will give him or any GOP nominee a pass on this.