Let’s talk about The Candidate Who Wasn’t There. It’s extraordinary that some polls show Governor TCWWT leading President Obama. Given he can’t say how he’ll fix the economy, doesn’t know how the deficit works, thinks tax cuts are the same as GDP, and figures illegal immigrants really want to leave the country, it’s stunning. Given that he also knows dick-squat about the lives of his fellow Americans, it’s a shocker.

And look, he’s growing weary and defensive with the press. Jeepers, you media people. With your questions, don’t you have anything better to do? Me, I can imagine the next leader of the free world. And I think malaise. Devastating ennui. How much harder than a Mark Halperin interview can a nuclear conflict be?

Halperin: . . what specific skills or policies did you learn at Bain that would help you create an environment where jobs would be created?

Romney: Well that’s a bit of a question like saying, what have you learned in life that would help you lead? [...]

Halperin: But you welcome scrutiny of your business record, is that right?

Romney: . . I spent twenty-five years in the private sector. And that obviously teaches you something that you don’t learn if you haven’t spent any time in the private sector. If you were to say to me, tell me what you learned from your schooling that would help you be a President, it’s like, well, how do I begin going through a list like that?

If Mitt were merely running for congress, you’d say, “What a know-nothing bitch.” But he’s Republican and running for president, so you’re supposed to say, “What a testy block of granite,” or something. Don’t tread on me. Because I’m going to bed, alright?

Now, as usual, when an election approaches, Republicans pull together nicely. And so it goes. Increasingly, Team Wullard will have surrogates and heavy hitters available to do what poor TCWWT can’t. Speak. To humans. On Thursday, this guy did it:

Mitt Romney has always had trouble igniting the Republican base, and apparently some key surrogates have now taken to begging for support.

Bellicose former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, who has been informally advising Romney on foreign policy, was the keynote speaker at a GOP fundraiser in Iowa last night where he pleaded, “Even if you’re not at this moment an enthusiastic supporter of Gov. Romney, will you please get yourself together in the next three or four months?”

Let’s get to the straight talk. For the slaughterhouse bunch, GOP unity can be had, but for a price. Bolton’s gravitas wouldn’t lift a finger without some promises. He gets his cuts. A chunk of the administration. Remember this whenever you see evil step up and start talking the wonders of Mitt: John’s doing it because he’s going to run a division of the enterprise. You don’t have to guess anything about the Spineless Man’s presidency.

In typical Bolton fashion, he also told the Polk County Republicans that a dollar spent on defense is better “than a dollar spent with the Department of Health and Human Services.”

You already know. It will be chock-full of Boltons.