GOP is stuck with Clark Kent (minus the spandex)

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane. It's ... it's ... (sigh) ... another false alarm. Dammit, the Republicans grouse. It turns out that Rick Perry, the latest Superman impostor, is just another fumbling politician easily felled by even a whiff of Kryptonite if it comes packaged as a debate podium. But Republicans remain steadfast at the docks, waiting for their superhero's ship to come in. Surely there exists a GOP Man of Steel (preferably one without a Texan drawl) who can defeat President "Lex Luthor" Obama in 2012. Some want to believe that he is Chris Christie. But why they think the rotund New Jersey governor would look good in red, white and blue spandex (let alone fit into the outfit) is beyond me. Like Perry, Christie too has baggage (he's rude, crude and not particularly popular in Snooki Land). Unlike Perry, he has little of the stuff Republicans value most: executive experience (he's only halfway through his first term). And there's also this news flash: He's not running for president. Fox News reported that sources close to Christie said "he has finally made a definitive decision, once and for all, not to run for president in 2012." Christie's brother Todd told The Star-Ledger today: "I'm sure that he's not going to run. If he's lying to me, I'll be as stunned as I've ever been in my life." Granted, Christie hasn't personally doused the flame-broiled clamor yet. (All politicians like the national klieg lights, so why rush?) But it's a near certainty he isn't running. I hate to break it my Republican friends, but waiting for a Caped Crusader is as pointless as waiting for Godot. You're stuck with mild-mannered Mitt "Clark Kent" Romney. And even if SuperMitt had the audacity to sport spandex beneath his Savile Row suit, there would be few if any phone booths for him to change in thanks to Republican-driven deregulation of the telecom biz. (Oops. How's that for poetic irony?) I'm afraid the guy who is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound is that other fella, Barack Obama. Um, sorry.