Dear GOP: It's Time to Panic

On the surface, things aren’t looking good for President Obama—but if Republicans want to beat him, they’ll need a viable candidate. And that’s something they don’t appear to have, writes Matt Latimer for the Daily Beast. Instead, they’ve got battered Herman Cain, who’s still at the top of the field. “When you cannot lure voters away from a man who is accused of several counts of disreputable behavior and who seems to lack an understanding of many basic issues, you’ve got yourself a problem,” Latimer writes.

Mitt Romney, meanwhile, seems so full of “consultant-fed pablum” that even his controversial ideas—like raising the retirement age—don’t get the media going. Then there’s Rick Perry, who’s still trying to prove he wasn’t plastered in New Hampshire. Even William Kristol is acknowledging that no Republican is going to come from nowhere and pull a 1980 Ronald Reagan-style victory. “Is it time for the GOP to start panicking yet?” Latimer asks. Yep. And it's not too late for a new candidate to jump in. "Just don't anybody give that idea to Donald Trump." (More Herman Cain 2012 stories.)