Conservative columnist George Will offered this during last Sunday's ABC show This Week:

WILL: ... exactly right about the rise of Cain. It has a lot to do with Romney. He is rising as more and more Republicans come to the conclusion that the Republican Party has found its Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor running on competence, not ideology.

And while that's not exactly new for Will, who's been saying similar things about Romney since 2007, his criticisms seem to be getting stronger and more pointed. Here is part of what he'll have to say in his column which comes out on Sunday in the Washington Post.

“Romney, supposedly the Republican most electable next November, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable, he might damage GOP chances of capturing the Senate: Republican successes down the ticket will depend on the energies of the tea party and other conservatives, who will be deflated by a nominee whose blurry profile in caution communicates only calculated trimming. Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from "data" ... Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for THIS?”

It bears repeating that among conservatives words such as "competence" become euphemisms for "compromise" which in turn means complete abdication of conservative principles. But in the world George Will and others of his ilk inhabit, ideology does triumph all, even at the expense it would seem of winning back the White House with the one candidate who seems like he would he would give Obama the most trouble out of the sorry lot that is the Republican field. That type of thinking is sort of remarkable when you stop and think about it. We knew the tea party crowd were that nutty but it would appear the mainstream conservatives would also rather fall on their sword than go with their own compromising candidate.