As Mitt Romney limps inevitably to the Republican presidential nomination, he seems to be indicative of a party riddled with internal problems. The Republican brand was badly damaged by eight years of Bush and Cheney and it has not been helped by the rabid anti-Obama criticism, which smacks of outright racism. Almost every month we see a new Republican politician have to apologize for offensive jokes about the president and his family. Apparently, some people are clueless to the fact that comparing black people to monkeys and making jokes about the First Lady's posterior are offensive.

But the painfully drawn out primary process has indicated that there are deep problems in the party. The media-driven primaries just highlighted candidates who were too outside the norm to be taken seriously. Charlatan Herman Cain managed to con people into thinking he was a serious presidential candidate, when all he was doing was embarking on an extended media tour. Rep. Michelle Bachmann set women back several years with her error-ridden, fact-free statements, and Rick Santorum seems to want to return the country to the 1950s, with his views on keeping women in the home and banning abortion and contraception.

Although the media keeps trying to portray Newt Gingrich as serious presidential candidate, I can't think of anyone outside the Republican party who takes the thrice-married "family values" candidate seriously. And Texas Governor Rick Perry loses credibility every time he opens his mouth. The audiences at the primaries, who booed a gay soldier, cheered the death penalty, applauded the idea of letting people without healthcare die and most recently applauded child labor and booed African American commentator Juan Williams, must have had party leaders holding their heads in horror.

The sanest candidate Jon Huntsman has already stepped down. Poor Huntsman, he can't seem to understand that the Republican party of Eisenhower and Lincoln, has been hijacked by fundamentalist Christians, nativists and neo fascists. Huntsman said he believed in climate change and evolution, which made him appeal to most mainstream Americans, but worked against him in the GOP, where feigning ignorance seems to be a virtue. I laughed when he tried to impress a Republican crowd by speaking Mandarin. What a joke! The GOP base is suspicious of anyone whose name ends in a vowel, so they probably won't warm to anyone who is fluent in a language other than English.

Now Mitt Romney seems to be emerging as a front runner who Republicans are reluctantly getting behind. Even though a group of conservative leaders have tried to back Santorum, this only shows how out of touch the Moral Majority is. Backing Santorum is like putting your money on a donkey in the Kentucky Derby.

The fact that Romney is the front runner indicates that the party is ignorant to the candidate's major flaws. Here are some of Romney's other issues:

• He is a Mormon. As much as people like to brush over this issue, I still think that many Evangelical Christians, who are a major force in the Republican party, are going to have a problem voting for a candidate who is a member of a religion which many people don't consider part of mainstream Christianity. Members of the Church of Latter Day Saints might think they are inside the Christian tent, but they also believe that black people were cursed by God, Jesus and Satan were brothers and God was once a man. Many Southerners used to look at Catholics askew, so I don't know what they are going to think of Mormons.
• He is a member of the 1 percent. In an age when Americans are taking to the streets to protest economic inequality, this is the best the GOP can do? Romney is worth more than $200 million, and made his money as a corporate raider buying and breaking up American companies. Not very sensitive, guys. I will be interested to see how he addresses middle class fears about the economy. His joke about betting Rick Perry $10,000 shows how out of touch he is with working people.
• He is gaffe prone. From protesting in favor of the draft in the 1960s, (while getting a deferment), to saying that corporations are people, Romney has shown a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and I expect we have not seen the last of his gaffes.
• He is a moderate, which according to the new far-right views of the Republican party, makes him a dreaded "liberal." When Romney ran for senate against Ted Kennedy in liberal Massachusetts, he had to present himself as a moderate Republican, who was pro choice and supported universal healthcare, cardinal sins for a Republican.
  
  

It is evident that there are real problems with Romney. And it remains to be seen if he can weld the party's factions into a solid unit to support his presidency. I suspect that Romney is going to have a tough time getting the conservative wing behind him, unless he nominates a social conservative as his vice president. But here is a quote from Ann Coulter, which as much as I am loathe to admit, best sums up Romney. Coulter said, "If Chris Christie doesn't run, Romney will be nominated, and we'll lose to Obama."