Considering that Mitt Romney has actually now gone negative — or his “conservative outreach advisor” has on his behalf — we could be seeing an amazing phenomenon in this accelerating campaign season. Romney comes out of nowhere to rise into the first tier of candidates, raises $6 million in a night, gives a bad speech in his maiden appearance in the right-wing big leagues, chickens out on spelling out a firm position on Iraq, gets tagged as a flip-flopper, loses steam, goes up on the air with an ad to shore up his declining support, and starts frontally attacking other candidates to bring up their negatives.

And all this in three months! Sic transit gloria mundi.