Philadelphia Inquirer "GOP desperately seeking a viable candidate for 2012". Yes, indeed, they are. And the most obvious, best positioned possibility is waiting for the call. It's time for the Joe Scarborough trial balloon.

Interesting state-of-affairs view from Philly, with a trial balloon for Fred Karger (who?).

Forget that one - how about the real zinger.

Someone in the MSM please send it up.

Joe Scarborough.

Here's the view from Philly:



Their nomination process is orderly; they generally gravitate to a front-runner, someone who tried and failed before (Ronald Reagan in 1980, George Bush senior in 1988, Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain in 2008), or someone with stellar insider connections (George W. Bush in 2000). Not this time. Romney is usually on top, drawing roughly 20 percent of the likely Republican primary voters - the worst posting for a Republican front-runner since Gallup began tracking the party contest in 1952. And when Republican voters were asked in mid-April, by the New York Times-CBS News pollsters, to cite the candidate they were most enthusiastic about, 57 percent couldn't name anybody.

The void is so huge that even Rudy "9/11" Giuliani said Tuesday that he's keeping "the door open" for a presidential bid. Yeah, he's exactly what the restive Republicans are looking for. The first time he ran, in 2008, he spent $60 million and won exactly one delegate, which strikes me as the polar opposite of fiscal conservatism.

So why the void? For starters, it's no easy task to confront an incumbent who figures to raise and spend $1 billion. Second, many of the likely '12 aspirants are having trouble raising sufficient early money, because donors are holding back. And they're reluctant for the same reason that the Republican base is ill-disposed: The '12 hopefuls have more baggage than an airport carousel at Christmas.

Romney is a human weathervane who's still trying to deny his moderate gubernatorial record in order to pander rightward. Pawlenty is going the same route, having renounced his belief in man-made global warming. Huckabee ticks off the party's antitax zealots because as a governor he raised taxes. Huntsman, who will soon step down as U.S. ambassador to China, is tainted because he (gasp) worked for Barack Obama. Gingrich and Bachmann are fun on the stump, but the only way either of them will get to the White House is with a visitor's pass.

And Trump? He seems like a passing spring squall. Conservatives who love his birther bilge will sour on him once they learn about his liberal past, notably this line from one of his books: "We must have universal health care."