Can you say, ‘Better than Palin?’

If you had told me a year ago that weeks after the Florida GOP primary former US Senator, Crusade supporter and scatological punchline Rick Santorum would still a ‘serious’ candidate for President, I would have said, “Stop trying to make me feel better.”

Then you’d say, “No seriously. And birth control will be a HUGE issue.”

I would have nodded and left you to your coloring book.

The 2012 GOP primary is when liberal dreams come true. One-by-one terrible frontrunners have been replaced with even worse frontrunners until now, when the GOP is now flirting with the worst of the worst.

As you know, Santorum is completely unelectable for many reasons. Foremost:

1. Santorum oozes the misogyny and homophobia that brings young people and liberal-leaning swing voters to the polls.

In the 21st century you get to compare homosexuality to bestiality once before you’re off the nationally electable list. As @rationalists tweeted, “Rick Santorum says women are too emotionally weak for combat, but emotionally strong enough to raise the child of their rapist.” If he’s the nominee, every speech he gives will be a Democratic GOTV event. If blah voters needed any encouragement to vote, Rick Santorum would give it to them.

2. Santorum epitomizes George W. Bushness.

He proudly voted to blow the surplus, to invade Iraq and to pass Medicare Part D without funding it. And unlike most Republicans who have erased 2000-2008 from their memories, he’s only blocked out 2006-2008. He’s proud of his record and thinks the only thing Republicans have ever done wrong is TARP. This is a disconnect that would even embarrass Republicans, if that were possible.

3. He lost his last election by 18 percent.

18 percent! And that’s when a majority of Americans opposed gay marriage.

You don’t have to have Larry Sabato’s Crystal Balls to know that the only GOP candidate who has any chance of being elected in 2012 is Mitt Romney. Of the four remaining candidates, he’s the only one who has any hope of winning the suburban swing voters who decide Presidential elections, if both parties hold their bases.

But for Romney to pull this off, he needed two things that just don’t appear to be happening. 1.) He needed to emerge from the primaries without having to out-Santorum anyone. Now he’s come out against religious employer-provided birth control, something he mandated in Massachusetts. He’s gone to the right quicker than Michele Bachmann at an Erotic Exotic Expo. 2.) He needs the economy to tank.

Scratch the first and cross your fingers about the second.

[Graphic from Santorum fundraising email.]