[MikeWaters]

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...he-inexorable/

I spent last night’s Republican debate trying to imagine scenarios where Mitt Romney loses the G.O.P. nomination for president. Rick Perry gets bitten by a radioactive Lincoln-Douglas debate champion and develops a sudden facility for public argument? A long-lost codicil to the Constitution is discovered, in which the Founding Fathers endorse the 9-9-9 tax plan? Utah renames itself the Republic of Deseret and secedes from the Union, forcing Romney to make a tragic choice between his religion and his country? Or, perhaps most unlikely of all — Jon Huntsman is embraced by the Tea Party and pulls off a surprise upset in Iowa?