Too many debates?

It’s looking more and more like nobody, at least no Republicans with any clout, thought enough about the possible unintended consequences -- uh, oh! -- of the GOP staging way, way too many debates.

Six months ago they must have said -- hey, the more televised debates, the better. In the modern equivalent of smoke-filled rooms, the experts must have thought -- dueling conservatives behind podiums will steal the spotlight from the White House.  

Nonetheless, now it appears the likely primary voters, schooled by the avalanche of debates, have gotten so fixed on finding a tough-talking arch conservative they imagine will kick Obama's ass in the 2012 presidential debates ... they‘ve wigged out.

The Republicans actually seem poised to embrace a puffy poseur, a friendless burner of bridges, whose lumbering bandwagon must drag behind it a thousand and one trunks full of lead balloons.