Quick Post: GOP Clearing the decks?

I was thinking initially that Newt Gingrich might be intentionally sabotaging his own chances to allow conservative voters to coalesce around another candidate to combat Romney.  But why not him?  And why would he enter the race just prior to doing that?  Why did both Mike Huckabee  and Donald Trump drop out so close together?  Why did Ron Paul say that going after Bin Laden was wrong?  Why did John Huntsman just declare that he believed the science behind global warming because 90% of scientist were behind it (wrong.  And there was a time 90% of scientists were behind the earth being flat).  

That's a lot of drop outs and flubs that seemingly make candidates unelectable, in a relatively short time.  Maybe the GOP establishment, including other candidates, are clearing the decks for Mitt Romney to walk through the primaries.  The thinking might be that a quick and easy primary leaves more time to marshal resources (money and volunteers) and efforts around a single candidate in order to combat the expected money machine.  I hope not.  It's a slap against a democratic process.  It's short-sighted too.  The GOP would be bypassing an opportunity and also leave the last man standing as a long term target for the mainstream media.

This might provide a perfect opportunity for Palin or Bachmann to step in as the Romney alternative.  And who knows, maybe that is the real motivation here.