Mitt Romney is the Harriet Miers of the 2012 election cycle. He is only a conservative because certain Washington conservatives tell us he is conservative. These same Washington conservatives said the same about Harriet Miers back in 2005.

What’s more, it is starting to show. Have you seen the latest CNN poll?

Newt Gingrich has surged into the lead. That was rather expected. But Mitt Romney fell four points.

Yet again we see a non-Romney candidate move into the lead. It has gotten as predictable as the sun coming up. Romney is always the bridesmaid and never the bride. Why is that? It’s easy to understand.

The Republican base profoundly distrusts MItt Romney for a billion legitimate reasons, including such small things as his refusal to sit in the center chair on Bret Baier’s show or answer any tough questions. And let’s not forget all his flip-flops well chronicled right here.

Mitt Romney has given the base no reason to ever trust him except, in 2008, when he was not named John McCain. That’s it.

So when we get to the general election, Mitt Romney will have Jenn Rubin of the Washington Post cheerleading him with the editorial page of National Review behind her and virtually every other Republican giving him golf claps on the way to annihilation against a base of black voters and union voters who will go vote for Barack Obama come hell or high water.

Don’t get me wrong. Republicans will vote for Mitt Romney. But their energy will be tepid. He gives no one anything to get excited about except the makers of silly putty and hair products.

For months on end the establishment Republicans in Washington, D.C. have told us that Mitt Romney is the “most electable” guy. I have a hard time seeing how anybody can be the most electable guy when a minimum of 75% of the guy’s own base of voters consistently want someone else. The best response the Romney fans have is that none of the other guys are getting much more than that either. True, but we have seen time and time again that as any one of them drops out or other implodes, their voters will go elsewhere — just not to Mitt Romney.

Of course I do expect him to be the nominee, so I anticipate four more years of Barack Obama.