Let me finish tonight with the joy of watching a cake get baked. This weekend the Republican Party baked its cake; that cake is now out there on display in the national window for all to see.
It's got two layers - Bachman and Romney - and a Perry on top.
All the fixings are off the table - Santorum's not going to be the nominee. Nor is it going to be Newt or the others. Pawlenty had the swiftness to take himself out clean. No, the cake is baked and it has only got two layers - and a Perry on top.
Perry! I look at him up there and realize, wow, what just happened? This weekend it all went from a party with the wrong ingredients or not enough of the right ones to hey, look at that cake with the Perry on top. Doesn't it look good?
So here's the story that cake is telling us: The Republican Party is now two-thirds Tea with Bachman a winner in the Iowa Straw Poll – the only winner in anything so far and Perry looking every inch the winner.
This makes Romney the odd one out. He's the only that doesn't belong in this new political confection that hates anything to do with health care, or climate change or even has "room" for someone who's backed abortion rights, anyone who's different in any way from the old time religion folks.
From here on it's the battle of the months. It's from here back to Iowa, then right to New Hampshire and South Carolina. We've got three in this thing and nobody being called to come in. Something's changed this weekend.
The cake got baked and it's all about Romney and Bachman and that Perry on top.