Maybe it is unavoidable...

Perhaps the only viable option for a winning ticket in 2012 is a Romney-Santorum run.

Romney's popularity just doesn't seem to wane... at all, even with the mountains of baggage he has in regards to flip-flop positions like healthcare and foreign policy.  Santorum seems to carry the label of "extreme" with him wherever he goes, no matter how middle-of-the-road his position is.

Now, I am fully aware of who is applying these labels: the liberal media machine.  What I still think is undeniably fact in this election cycle is the simple premise that it is NOT the "conservative" voter that will win the election away from Obama... it is the independent, undecided vote.  Of course, Republicans and old-school "Blue Dogs" will vote against Obama... that is a given.  But even the most conservative polls show that only 30% of the voting population consider themselves "conservative"... while most of the rest are "moderate" or "liberal".

I think the ticket with the most appeal (right now, anyway) will be a Romney-Santorum ticket.  I can easily live with this ticket because I have a sneaking suspicion that Santorum will be a "strong" VP... in the vein of Kennedy's Johnson, or Bush's Cheney.  He can maintain the influence and attention needed to show himself an electable candidate in his own right eight years after 2012.