In many ways, Romney is McCain’s best choice on a very short list for VP. He’s erudite, practiced in all manner of political and financial enterprises, and can deliver both youth and policy achievement. He can offer change and claim actual experience in it.

He would also doom the McCain candidacy with that crucial right-wing bloc - Evangelicals.

They say Mr. Romney lacks trust on issues such as outlawing abortion and opposing same-sex marriage and because he is a Mormon.

This is another case of the snarl that right-wing politics has become, post-Rove. Bush’s electoral strength came from wielding wedge issues to get social reactionaries to vote against their pocket books - it blended big government corporate welfare and military belligerence with God, Guns and Gays into a witches brew as unpalatable as it was potent.

Now, without a born-again standard bearer, the GOP finds its ranks turning on itself. Economic conservatives snort derisively at social conservative issues as insipid or intolerant. Social conservatives feel increasingly uncomfortable with big business raiding the tax larder and playing fast and loose with the law. And the Evangelical community, galvanized by politically active preachers to “put a man of faith in the White House,” now finds itself fragmented into the spectrum of political ideas included in its congregation.

So the fact that Romney can present brass tacks plans to counter Obama come fall, all while keeping his conservative cred strong, gives little benefit to McCain. If the Arizona Senator was still going full bore with his maverick image, dismissing the megachurch crowd as “agents of intolerance” as he once did, that would be one thing.

Instead, McCain is driving toward the far right in fifth gear on social issues. He has condemned gay adoption, vowed to overturn Roe v. Wade and stood staunch by the Defense of Marriage Amendment - a platform that would make a libertarian right-winger cringe, but that’s candy for the religious right. Romney would be a lodestone in this scheme, not a foundation of good credentials.

I find that tragic, and not because it cuts Romney off the list. He may still get the nod, though it’s unlikely for the reasons above, because the other two on the list are feebs. One is Charlie Crist, whose formerly rising star is plummeting fast in his Governorship, Florida. The other is Bobby Jindal, a flip-flopping dingbat whose embrace of Creationism as science might win some born-agains, but not enough to offset a pathetic record.

It’s tragic because it underscores how badly the GOP needs a housecleaning. They have gone from the straight-shooting party of Barry Goldwater to a factious coalition of intolerants and greedheads, held together by a thinning party loyalty alone.

We see it in the dialogue of the Presidential campaign most of all, where the GOP candidate won’t talk about issues because, when the chips are down in any economic assessment of his plans, they show him coming up ethically and intellectually short.

McCain has hitched his wagon to this sad, sputtering train: A platform of massive benefits to the economic elite at the expense of services to all, of spiteful and fearful control over people’s moral decisions, of lies rather than legacy. His party needs to wise up to the future and get back to its small government roots.

Until then, talent like Romney is going to be tossed out as a sop to intolerance.