Based on his record alone, the president should be, at best, a long shot for re-election. The stock market is tanking. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. Poverty is on the rise. Washington seems adrift. To many, Obama's current crusade on behalf of the American Jobs Act looks more like a cynical campaign ploy than a serious effort to get the country working again.

Even if you hold his diehard partisan opponents responsible for the mess, as I do, it's hard to make a really convincing case for a second Obama term. Until, that is, you consider most of the alternatives. And then all of a sudden, Obama starts looking like a shoo-in.

If I were a Republican strategist, I'd call an immediate halt to the presidential debates, like the one Thursday night, before the wacky -- even bat-dung crazy -- performances by most of the candidates completely destroy any chance the GOP might have of regaining the White House. The more these guys and gal talk, the better Obama's chances.

Let's be frank. Only one of the would-be leaders of the free world who appeared on that stage Thursday night has even a glimmer of what it takes to do the job. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is an ignorant oaf, laughably unready for prime time. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are wild-eyed crazies. Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and new entrant Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, are nonentities.

That leaves the ever-flexible ex-Massachusetts Gov. Milt Romney as the only man standing with a realistic chance of offering a better alternative to Obama. The danger, from a Republican point of view, is that the longer he stands next to his far-out fellow GOP candidates, the more likely he will be contaminated by their contagious extremism. He has to find a way to separate himself from this loony crowd before they drag him down, along with the GOP's chances.