Can't Beat Somebody with Nobody

Finally, finally the 2012 story line is becoming clear.

After a nauseating search for a candidate (Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, Perry, Cain), a self-deluded convention (Eastwood, Ryan, no W) and a default anointment, the GOP crusade to unseat Barack Obama for an empty suit is coming apart at the seams.

Daily poll numbers are widening in favor of the President who, in stumping, downgrades Mitt Romney to a generic “my opponent.”

In the final weeks, despite all those fiery Citizens United defamation ads, voters are feeling the chill of what the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and their ilk are offering for the White House--one of their own not-quite-a-billionaire stand-ins who will say anything to get elected and do who-knows-what if he won.

Mitt Romney has emerged as the embodiment of Nobody. Barack Obama, however diminished by Tea Party Congressional treachery and his own shortcomings, is definitely Somebody.

He may be no FDR but clearly a President who has done what he could for the economy with his hands tied and, in light of Romney’s kamikaze attack on himself for the past week, guided a nation skillfully through wars and near-wars.

Voters are finally getting that picture, as even a silly poll suggests. Asked who would “win a fistfight” between the candidates, 58 percent choose Obama to 22 percent for Romney.

More to the point, in such an encounter would the President be alone in the ring, shadow-boxing?