Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Mitt Romney is not elected president in 2012–either because he loses the nomination or wins the nomination, but loses to President Obama. What would you guess the odds are of him putting himself forward again in 2016? Here’s Galley Reader D.R. laying down an early line:

Odds he runs again if Obama is the lame-duck incumbent?  2:1

Odds he takes on an incumbent President Gingrich for the nomination (while labeling him a “career politician who’s spent the last 4 years in Washington”)?  Even money.

Watching the various comments tick in on the big Romney post, I’m struck by one thing: The Romney boosters seem to be of two camps–people who believe Romney is a real-deal conservative and people who believe that Romney is the only sane person in a Republican party dominated by crazy, real-deal conservatives. Essentially, Romney-supporting commenters represent the two divergent views of David Frum  and Hugh Hewitt concerning Romney.

I wonder if the presence of the other side under the Romney banner gives either one pause, since Frum and Hewitt see each other as representing everything wrong with the GOP/conservatism. After all, they can’t both be right about Romney, can they? Either he is a Frum Republican or a Hewitt Republican.

So I asked for three betting lines the other day–(1) how long until Perry passed Romney, (2) how long until Romney got painted by the sympathetic liberal media as being the sort of wise, moderate Republican who would have won in a walk once upon a time, and (3) when Hugh Hewitt would abandon ship on Romney’s (latest) doomed campaign.

Today we have answers to all three!

Perry 29%, Romney 18%

Then Richard Cohen stepped up to the plate.

And now we have Hugh Hewitt’s assessment of the Perry campaign. Who does it benefit most? You’ll never guess . . .

The arrival this weekend of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the race further shatters all the crystal balls brought by all the pundits. Perry upset some Iowa elites by declaring his own rules and timetable, but individual voters in the 2012 caucuses won’t care, and Perry has a powerful appeal to the social conservatives who believe he has the courage, charisma and smarts to return their agenda to the center of the conversation.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin seems to understand that if she sits out 2012 she will forfeit the leadership of the party of faith within the Republican Party (a subparty that exists alongside and in cooperation with the party of growth and the party of national security).

If she plunges in, as more and more observers conclude she will, the values voters spread out in as many directions as mercury spilled upon a tabletop.

All of this leaves Mitt Romney a happy opponent of none of them and constant scourge of President Obama. Romney is the champion of the growth agenda, with only Herman Cain elbowing onto the space. Pawlenty had hoped to campaign in this issues terrain, but the map forced him into a battle with Bachmann and Santorum. It was a battle he admitted Sunday he could not win.

Only Perry seems positioned to make it a quick two-man race, and then only if he can consolidate the evangelicals with the Tea Party small-government activists and do it quickly — in Iowa, in fact.

The New Hampshire-Nevada-Michigan-Florida board is set up well for the Romney campaign, and the deep urgency felt across the party to beat the president has provided the former Massachusetts governor a floor that will not crumble.

“A floor that will not crumble.” Put that one in the vault, right next to the 2009 Limbaugh speech that will be “talked about for decades.” [Quick–what’s your favorite passage? I couldn’t pick just one . . . -ed], Mark Levin’s “extraordinary intellect,” and the rejection of Harriet Miers that “strenghtened the Democrats’ hand” in regards to the Supreme Court.

So I think we have our answer: Hugh Hewitt will jump off the Romney ship the day after he writes his New York Times op-ed tsk-tsking what a mistake Republicans made in rejecting the great man. (I don’t blame him–he’s got books to sell!)

Exit Question: Let’s set a new line–how many primary/caucus victories will Romney notch this time around? I’ll start the over/under at 3.