How does Romney become inevitable?

We still haven’t gotten to the point of an actual primary so one should be a little cautious about making pronouncements, but as things stand right now we are looking at a candidate—Mitt Romney--who is not liked or trusted by conservatives cruising to the nomination of the party supposedly dominated by those self same conservatives.  How does someone who can’t crack 25% establish himself as Mr. Inevitable? Easy, when none of the conservative candidates are credible.

In no particular order, what I believe conservatives would like to see in a challenger to Romney and aren’t is:

a)      An articulate and solid debater who can make the case for himself and conservative policies with fluency. [out Perry, Cain]

b)      Someone with solid, unquestioned allegiance to conservative principles without being an unbending ideologue. [out Bachman, Paul]

c)      A candidate who is well versed in domestic and foreign policy matters. [out Perry, Cain, Bachman]

d)      A happy warrior, someone with an appealing personality while running for office [out everyone but Cain]

Off hand I can think of one person who fits that profile to a tee and that’s William F. Buckley.  But as Rick Pitino noted in another context “he’s not walking through that door.”  Oh, well at least it isn’t an important election or anything.