Republican voters, activists, leaders, and pundits are all coming to the same realization: in November, either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will be the GOP nominee against President Obama. And as this insight takes root, many of those same voters, activists, leaders, and pundits are once again asking, “Are we sure it’s too late to nominate someone else?”

The latest is the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, who weighed in yesterday.

For months now, even as the rest of the conservative commentariat has gradually resigned itself to the existing presidential field, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol has continued to pine — publicly, unstintingly, immune to either embarrassment or fatigue — for another candidate to jump into the race. He’s dreamed of Mitch Daniels, touted Chris Christie, talked up Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, name-dropped Jeb Bush, and circled back to Daniels once more. He’s quoted poetry on behalf of his cause — Yeats, and (with some revisions) Andrew Marvell. He’s endured snark from the Huffington Post, eye-rolling from Slate, mockery from New York Magazine. But he’s continued undeterred — and in the wake of Newt Gingrich’s South Carolina victory, he was back at it again, throwing out a link to “a new online petition was launched Saturday night … at runmitchrun.com.”

And do you know what? He’s been right all along. Right that the decisions by various capable Republicans to forgo a presidential run this year have been a collective disgrace; right that Republican primary voters deserve a better choice than the one being presented to them; and right, as well, that even now it isn’t too late for one of the non-candidates to change their mind and run.

Sigh.

Over the late summer and early fall, when a large number of party officials expressed deep dissatisfaction with the GOP field, it was not unreasonable to reach out to possible candidates watching from the sidelines. Indeed, to a certain extent, these efforts worked — Rick Perry got into the race.

But September was a long time ago. Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have already weighed in, and Florida is a week away. I don’t blame Republicans for feeling underwhelmed, at a minimum, by the prospect of a Gingrich or Romney nomination, but it’s past time for the right to come to terms with the reality of the situation.

There are no white knights coming to rescue the party. It’s simply too late. As Eric Kleefeld documented nicely, “In every primary state up through early April, the filing deadlines have passed. That includes the very delegate-rich Super Tuesday of March 6…. [F]or a Republican hero to ride in on a white horse, it would take a scenario that verges on political science fiction: A combination of write-in voting where applicable — and for Romney to fully drop out and endorse this new savior candidate, to essentially bequeath his place on the ballot by telling his pledged delegates elected in this manner to go along with it.”

And what about talk of a brokered Republican convention? That’s “not going to happen,” either.

There are four candidates left — Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul — and one of them will win the 2012 Republican nomination. If the party isn’t satisfied with these choices, too bad. They should have thought of that before it was too late.

At least in theory, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann represent very different elements of the Republican Party. When the former is echoing the strange arguments of the latter, there’s a problem.

In last night’s debate, for example, Romney complained that gasoline prices have “doubled” since President Obama took office. If this line sounds familiar, it’s because Bachmann repeated it in nearly every stump speech for months.

The argument also happens to be ridiculous.

More important, though, is the reason that gas was — comparatively speaking — so cheap a few years ago. It wasn’t because the U.S. was suddenly pumping more oil, or because the Saudis had decided to flood the market, or because the head of ExxonMobil lost his mind and started to give all Americans a 2-for-1 deal on gas. The U.S. — and the world — was in the depths of the worst recession since the 1930s, depressing demand for everything from data centers to electricity to driving.

It’s Econ 101: precipitous falls in demand usually trigger precipitous falls in price, which is what happened to gas prices, dropping from a high of $4.05 a gallon in mid-July 2008 to a low of $1.69 a gallon at the end of December that year.

As Romney has noted repeatedly, under Obama, the economy has “gotten better.” And as the economy improved, demand went up, and the price of gas started climbing. This really isn’t complicated.

And yet, despite the simplicity of reality, Romney is spewing nonsense. Indeed, I’m not sure which is worse — the idea that Romney believes Bachmann’s silly talking points have merit, or the idea that Romney understands the facts just fine and wants to deceive the public on purpose.

Mitt Romney’s campaign, as promised, released the former governor’s 2010 tax returns, as well as an estimate for his 2011 returns, and we’re starting to get a sense of why the Republican candidate wasn’t eager to share these details.

Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments.

None came from wages, the primary source of income for most Americans. Instead, Romney and his wife, Ann, collected millions in capital gains from a profusion of investments, as well as stock dividends and interest payments.

By any fair estimate, over $42 million in income over two years isn’t bad for a guy who jokes about being “unemployed.” Indeed, Romney would be in the top 1% based solely on the income he makes in one week.

Romney said last week that his rate was “closer to 15%,” but as it turns out, despite his vast wealth, he actually only paid a 13.9% rate last year — lower than his political rivals who aren’t nearly as wealthy, and lower than most middle-class American workers.

And what about those overseas investments?

His 2010 return also showed that he had a financial account in Switzerland that was closed in 2010 and that he generated income from overseas investments. He also reported financial accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

A Reuters report added that Romney’s Swiss bank account was closed in 2010 “after an investment adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney.”

I suspect those with far more expertise in this area will subject these materials to considerable scrutiny, but at first blush, the disclosure appears to raise at least as many questions as it answers.

Why did Romney set up $100 million trust funds for his sons without paying any gift taxes? Were his accounts in the Caymans and in Switzerland created to avoid paying taxes? Was the closing of the Swiss account related to this IRS investigation? And given all of the questions surrounding Romney’s Bain-era work, why does the Republican candidate continue to insist he won’t disclose returns from previous years?

What’s more, following up on a point from last week, even if Romney argues that he’s simply playing by the rules — taking advantage of existing tax loopholes to pay lower rates than much of the middle class — this doesn’t explain why Romney is eager to exacerbate issues on tax fairness with his tax plan that makes the problem worse.

In a debate over tax fairness and income inequality, Romney is practically a case study for What’s Gone Wrong, but he can at least plausibly argue that this is a mess he benefits from, but didn’t create. Romney, however, prefers to believe the problem doesn’t exist.

Greg Sargent did a nice job capturing the larger political context:

I’m not sure the Obama campaign could have scripted this more perfectly. In a remarkable bit of good timing, President Obama is set to deliver a State of the Union speech focused on income inequality and tax unfairness on exactly the same day that Mitt Romney will reveal that he made over $40 million in the last two years — all of it taxed at a lower rate than that paid by middle class taxpayers. […]

Romney doesn’t just disagree with Obama on these fundamental issues; he personally symbolizes virtually the entire 2012 Democratic message. He is the walking embodiment of everything Dems allege is wrong with our system and the ways it’s rigged in favor of the wealthy and against the middle class. Yet this is the standard bearer the GOP seems set to pick.

Romney and his aides believe these materials should end the discussion. That’s backwards — the larger debate is just beginning.

Last night’s debate for the remaining presidential candidates offered Mitt Romney a chance to try to turn his campaign around. He hasn’t had much luck lately, and confidence in his candidacy has been badly shaken, especially after Romney turned a double-digit lead in South Carolina into a double-digit defeat.

But one of the former governor’s more disconcerting qualities is his reliance on falsehoods to get back in the game.

I won’t fact-check every claim from the debate, but there were some doozies that should, if honesty in politics had more meaning, cause Romney and his team some headaches. He claimed Dodd-Frank was hurting community banks, but that’s not true. He said he never advocated for a national health care mandate, and that’s false, too. He repeated his misleading claim about the size of the U.S. Navy; he claimed not to have received an inheritance; and he claims his private-equity firm never did any work with the government. All of these claims are deceptive, if not demonstrably wrong.

The most irksome, though, was this claim:

“We have $15 trillion of debt. We’re headed to a, to a Greece- type collapse, and he adds another trillion on top for Obamacare and for his stimulus plan that didn’t create private-sector jobs. This president has failed.”

This is an important part of Romney’s indictment against the president, so it’s worth unpacking it a bit. Let’s take this one claim at a time.

* It’s true we have $15 trillion in debt, but the biggest chunk comes from Bush-era tax breaks. Romney wanted to make them permanent.

* Anyone who seriously believes U.S. fiscal challenges are in any way similar to Greece is a fool.

* The Affordable Care Act doesn’t add to the debt, it cuts the debt by hundreds of billions of dollars.

* The stimulus created millions of private-sector jobs. Indeed, take a look at private-sector job growth since the start of the recession:

Since March 2010, the U.S. economy has added 3.1 million private-sector jobs. Even playing by Republican rules, that’s 3.1 million more than zero.

And as for whether President Obama has “failed,” Mitt Romney has argued repeatedly this month that under Obama, the economy has “gotten better.” That sounds to me like the opposite of failure.

I’m not optimistic this will ever happen, but Romney’s penchant for dishonesty in high-profile settings deserves to be a story unto itself.

In about an hour, NBC will host the latest in a seemingly-endless stream of debates for the four remaining Republican presidential candidates: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. The event will be the 17th debate of the cycle — the third in the last seven days — and will take place at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Why is the University of South Florida nowhere near south Florida? It’s a long story.

Anyway, the larger circumstances surrounding the race change the expectations for the debate considerably. Whereas Mitt Romney has enjoyed obvious frontrunner status for quite a while, making him the likely target in the last several debates, recent events in South Carolina have weakened the former governor and raised doubts about his candidacy. We can therefore expect him to be far more aggressive towards his main rival, Newt Gingrich, than we’re generally accustomed to.

And who knows, maybe this time Romney will manage to be coherent when he’s asked about his tax returns.

Gingrich, likewise, is now facing increased expectations, as Republicans wait for him to wow them with his combination of fear-anger-victimization combo.

It’s pretty likely I’ll have some thoughts on the debate in the morning. In the meantime, the floor is yours.

Today’s edition of quick hits:

* New sanctions on Iran: “The European Union agreed Monday to impose a phased ban on oil purchases from Iran that officials said was needed to help force a shift in policy and avert the risk of military strikes against Tehran, as the United States expanded its sanctions to include the country’s third-largest bank.”

* The prognosis appears encouraging: “Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) underwent ‘successful’ surgery today after suffering a stroke over the weekend and is recovering in a Chicago hospital, according to a spokesman.”

* And then there were seven (and counting): “As lawmakers held their first public hearing on gay marriage, a Democratic senator on Monday announced her support for the measure, all but ensuring that Washington will become the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage.”

* Blowing off a recusal question: “The Supreme Court has turned aside a motion from a political advocacy group that sought to argue Justice Elena Kagan should not participate in the upcoming blockbuster appeals over the constitutionality of health care reform.”

* OMB: “President Obama’s final budget proposal of his term, covering fiscal year 2013 and the decade beyond, will be released on Feb. 13, a week later than officials had previously indicated.”

* FAA compromise: “Lawmakers have reached a deal on a long-term funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that is likely to prevent shutdowns of the beleaguered agency for the foreseeable future, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said late Friday afternoon.”

* Republicans have routinely relied on this guy when arguing in support of torture: “Forty-seven-year-old John Kiriakou of Arlington was charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the Espionage Act…. The charges also state that Kiriakou leaked information about the identity of another CIA officer who participated in Zubaydah’s interrogation.”

* Nauseating: “The race for the Arkansas’ third congressional district took a gruesome turn on Sunday, when the campaign manager for Democratic challenger Ken Aden came home and found his cat slaughtered with the word “liberal” painted on the corpse.”

* Daniel Luzer takes a look at what Occupy Wall Street means for college debt.

* What a good idea: “Given Fox’s repeated insistence that ‘On January 1st, the government is … getting rid of incandescent light bulbs,’ Media Matters’ Jocelyn Fong visited a local CVS store to evaluate their selection.” I don’t want to spoil the report for those who haven’t seen it yet, but here’s a hint: the rights claims about light bulbs haven’t exactly been truth-oriented.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

After allowing the issue to raise some serious questions about his campaign, Mitt Romney told Fox News yesterday that he will release his 2010 tax return tomorrow, along with “an estimate” for 2011. The former governor seems to believe this should put the matter to rest. That strikes me as overly-optimistic.

Such a limited amount of disclosure just isn’t good enough. When Barack Obama ran in 2008, he released returns for the previous eight years. When Bill Clinton ran in 1992, he disclosed 12 years. As we were reminded last week, when George Romney ran, he also released 12 years of returns. He said at the time, “One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.”

When pressed on this yesterday, Romney argued his father’s appreciation for transparency came “before the Internet.” I’m not sure exactly what that’s supposed to mean, though it’s probably worth noting that the existence of the Internet didn’t stop the 2008 candidates from being far more forthcoming.

Regardless, David Cay Johnston makes a compelling case today that the controversy will continue to dog Romney “unless he makes public all of his returns from 1984 through 1999.” In other words, there should be scrutiny of Romney’s Bain-era finances.

Unless he releases the tax returns from his Bain Capital years he will surely be pressed about how much, if any, of his fortune has yet to be taxed and how long he deferred paying on the portion that has been taxed. He will be asked about Bain accounts in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other tax havens. While perfectly legal, these offshore accounts convey an unsavory political whiff to many people, including some of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.

And what about taxes on the $100 million that Romney put into a trust for his five sons. How much Massachusetts and federal income tax, as well as gift tax, was paid on that money?

None of these questions can be answered without the returns from his Bain years.

Romney appears to be counting on the media having a limited attention span. He’ll release his 2010 returns, tell reporters he’s done what he’s been asked to do, and wait for the questions to simply go away.

Here’s hoping they don’t.

From a press release that landed in my inbox this afternoon:

New polling from Americans Elect shows Americans evenly divided between voting for a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent-minded presidential candidate. This polling is consistent with other national polls that demonstrate the need for a new way to pick a president.

According to the Americans Elect poll, about two thirds of voters (66 percent) believe it is important for an independent to run for president in 2012. A solid majority is favorable towards an independent running against the Democratic and Republican nominees. About one‐quarter (26 percent) say they are absolutely certain or very likely to vote for an independent presidential candidate. When those who say “possibly” are included, that number jumps to 64 percent.

I haven’t seen the methodology of the phrasing of the question, but to a large extent, it doesn’t much matter. The notion that there’s a significant number of Americans willing to support an independent presidential candidate seems pretty uncontroversial, and I can recall seeing other polls pointing to similar results for years.

The next question, though, is why anyone should care. Unnamed, generic candidates can find it easy to generate widespread public support because, well, they don’t exist. Voters can imagine these candidates having all kinds of appealing qualities, but real people with actual records and positions on controversial issues tend to find presidential campaigns a little more difficult.

For that matter, Americans Elect doesn’t actually have a candidate. The entity has reportedly reached out to a variety of people Americans Elect leaders find appealing — Joe Lieberman, Lamar Alexander, and Chuck Hagel, for example — and none was interested. Even Jon Huntsman has ruled it out.

And while we’re at it, let’s also not forget that Americans Elect is sitting on $30 million for their election project, and organizers refuse to disclose where the money came from. Ed Kilgore recently added that organizers have also adopted a series of “anti-democratic measures” and built them into Americans Elect’s structure: “the power of a board to set aside (subject to a veto override from ‘voters’) the People’s Choice in order to create a legitimately ‘balanced, centrist’ ticket, whatever that means.”

I realize Americas Elect is in a position to have an effect on the presidential race, and has secured a ballot line in at least a dozen states. But as near as I can tell, it’s an overly-secretive, well-financed gimmick, eager to play electoral mischief for reasons that remain unclear.

The details of the accounts vary a bit, but it appears Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) ran into a little trouble at a Nashville airport this morning. He went through security, and after a scan, TSA asked to do a full body pat-down. The senator refused, so he was denied access to the gate. (thanks to H.M. for the tip)

The story, such as it is, seems to have been resolved fairly quickly — Paul got booked on a different flight and departed without incident.

But here’s the part I found interesting:

Paul, a Republican, was traveling to Washington, when he was detained. He noted earlier on his Twitter that he was planning to speak at the March for Life.

“Today I’ll speak to the March for Life in DC. A nation cannot long endure w/o respect for the right to Life. Our Liberty depends on it,” tweeted Rand Paul at 9:49 A.M.

Hmm. So, Rand Paul, always cautious about his privacy rights, balked at airport security measures. He was en route to a March for Life rally, where he’ll speak to activists who don’t believe there is a right to privacy.

Libertarians sure are an odd bunch.

The justices didn’t exactly agree on the rationale, but all nine ended up in the right place.

The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days.

But the justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property. That ruling avoided many difficult questions, including how to treat information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how to treat information held by third parties like cellphone companies.

Walter Dellinger, a lawyer for the defendant in the case and a former acting United States solicitor general, said the decision “is a signal event in Fourth Amendment history.”

In this case, the police placed a GPS tracker on a suspected drug dealer’s jeep without a warrant for four weeks, and then used the obtained information to get a conviction. Five justices — Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Sotomayor — said the device constituted a search of private property. Four justices — Alito, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan — focused on reasonable expectations of privacy.

The next question is how this will apply to related technological advances, most notably the tracking of mobile phones, which would not require law enforcement to physically place anything on a person or their vehicle. On this, it appears the Supreme Court’s breakdown would be slightly different.

Justice Sotomayor joined the majority opinion, agreeing that many questions could be left for another day “because the government’s physical instruction on Jones’s jeep supplies a narrower basis for decision.”

But she seemed to leave little doubt that she would have joined Justice Alito’s analysis had the issue he addressed been the exclusive one presented in the case.

“Physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance,” Justice Sotomayor wrote…. “People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers,” she wrote. “I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year.”

It would appear, then, there are five votes for broader use of warrants when it comes to modern technology. That’s encouraging.

We can probably expect a pretty brutal campaign in Florida, with Mitt Romney needing a win to regain his footing, and Newt Gingrich needing a win to solidify his status as a realistic GOP presidential nominee.

With this in mind, Romney apparently has a two-pronged message for Floridians, where the effects of economic crash and housing bubble were especially severe. The first, as we heard this morning, is that Romney cares about Florida’s widespread foreclosures.

Mitt Romney … took a seat in front of a foreclosure map, grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and started note-taking on individual stories of pain.

“I saw this morning that the number of homes in foreclose represents about around one quarter of all homes in the country,” he said. “Some 460,000 homes — absolutely extraordinary numbers.”

And the second is that this is a real area of weakness for Gingrich.

Mr. Romney then asked the crowd of about 250, “What’s he been doing for 15 years” since leaving his House position? “He’s been working as a lobbyist, selling influence around Washington. He’s been working for Freddie Mac, heard of those guys?”

It was a pointed reference, here in the foreclosure capital, because Freddie Mac is a federally run mortgage giant. The mention was met with cries of “boo” from the crowd.

“He said he was a historian,” Mr. Romney said. “I would like him to release his records. What was his work product there? Freddie Mac figures in very prominently to the fact that people in Florida have seen home values go down.”

The message might have greater salience if the messenger had more credibility.

Let’s take these one at a time. On the first point, it stands to reason that Romney would show sadness for those facing foreclosure, but what he neglected to mention this morning is his own position on the crisis. In October, Romney argued he’s opposed to foreclosure relief for struggling Americans. “Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process,” he argued. “Let it run its course and hit the bottom.”

Notwithstanding what he considers “absolutely extraordinary,” Romney is the only pro-foreclosure candidate in the race.

On the second point, it’s clear that Gingrich has a legitimate Freddie Mac problem, but Romney appears to have one of his own. According to his personal finance disclosure forms, Romney invested pretty heavily in Freddie Mac and made a fair amount of money.

Maybe the former governor should pick a different issue to focus on?

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), a year after surviving an assassination attempt, has decided she’ll step down from Congress this week to focus on her ongoing recovery. Giffords will not seek re-election in November.

* On a related note, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) will have to set a day for a special election, and Democratic officials hope to persuade Giffords’ husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, to run for the seat.

* There were rumors Saturday night that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) would make an endorsement in the Republican presidential race, but he said yesterday he will “stay neutral” until after next week’s primary.

* Speaking of Florida, some initial polling suggests Newt Gingrich received a post-South Carolina bump in the polls.

* And speaking of Gingrich, the disgraced former House Speaker’s campaign reportedly pulled in more than $1 million since his win on Saturday night.

* Sen. Orrin Hatch’s (R) odds of re-election in Utah have improved, but the right-wing FreedomWorks organization still hopes to derail his campaign in advance of the state Republican Party’s convention.

* New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has once again said he’s open to running as Romney’s running mate, though yesterday he said he’s “inclined” to stay in his current job.

* Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele conceded on Friday that he believes it may be “very, very hard” for his party to maintain a House majority after the 2012 elections. He added that Republicans are “going to have to come with a good A game to hold it.”

It’s not too uncommon for states to launch initiatives intended to eliminate antiquated and unnecessary laws. Over the course of generations, officials and bureaucracies can approve all kinds of measures — most of which go ignored and unenforced by modern policymakers — that are no longer needed.

So, when Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) created an “Office of the Repealer” to identify these out-of-date state laws for elimination, the idea wasn’t necessarily misguided. The problem, though, is that antiquated and unnecessary laws can still run into a culture-war agenda.

For gay men and lesbians, there seemed one particularly obvious candidate: Kansas Statute 21-3505.

That would be the “criminal sodomy” statute, which prohibits same-sex couples from engaging in oral or anal sex. The law was rendered unenforceable nearly a decade ago by a United States Supreme Court ruling, but it remains enshrined in the state’s legal code.

But on Friday, when Mr. Brownback, a conservative Republican, released a list of 51 laws to recommend to the Legislature for repeal, the sodomy statute was not among them.

Thomas Witt, chairman of the Kansas Equality Coalition, argued, “This isn’t just some archaic law that’s sitting on the books and isn’t bothering anyone. It’s used as justification to harass and discriminate against people, and it needs to go.”

Brownback knows the law isn’t being enforced. He also knows it’s unconstitutional. But despite the drive to eliminate unnecessary statutes from the books, the far-right governor just can’t bring himself to scrap a pointless and offensive measure.

Apparently, just having the law there makes conservatives feel better, making the anti-sodomy measure something akin to a right-wins security blanket.

When the right’s antipathy towards unnecessary laws runs into the right’s hostility for LGBT rights, it appears the latter still trumps the former.

Even a casual glance at Mitt Romney’s campaign pitch reveals a pretty straightforward message: he’s a conservative businessman, not a traditional politician, who’ll focus on jobs.

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination heats up, and attention turns to next week’s Florida primary, AFSCME has a good idea on how to use this pitch against him: note the similarities to the same pitch Floridians heard in 2010.

The union is airing this 30-second television ad in the Sunshine State throughout the week:

As Greg Sargent explained, “The basis for the ad is a 2002 Boston Globe article reporting that Romney and Bain made huge profits from the 1993 sale of a medical testing company that earned its revenues partly from a criminal scheme to defraud the Medicare system. Romney served on the board of Damon from 1990-1993 but was never implicated in any way, the Globe reported, adding that the eventual sale of Damon made Romney $473,000 and netted $7.4 million for Bain investors.”

The underlying controversy, of course, offers a chance to connect Romney to Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), whose low approval ratings make the comparison anything but flattering.

Indeed, given Florida’s electoral significance, and Scott’s ability to repulse, I suspect this isn’t the last time we’ll see Romney’s critics equate him with the scandal-plagued governor. It’s a natural question for Florida voters to consider: remember the last time a conservative businessman with a shady private-sector background made a bunch of promises? Were Floridians satisfied with the results?

I would imagine that President Obama and his allies would spend much of the fall making a similar argument in the Sunshine State: if you don’t like Rick Scott, don’t elect someone like him to the White House.