With all the attention on Rick Santorum lately, Mitt Romney seems to be increasingly marginalized. But the fact is that he stands a very good chance of winning the nomination, and a reasonably good chance of being elected President.

The Czar doubts Romney has that many conservatives fooled about his bona fides. His legacy as governor as Massachusetts isn’t as bad as many popular stories about him would have you believe. Here at the Castle, we have even found that some continuing stories about his anti-conservative practices are either untrue or distorted well beyond what really happened.

But let’s not fool ourselves; Mitt Romney is not the guy who will correct all that’s wrong with our country; neither, of course, is Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich. But any of these three would be a vastly better choice than our incumbent.

Or not. There is a persistent libertarian belief echoing around the internets these days, some even by regular visitors of our Castle whom we love (you know who you are), that they would rather vote for Barack Obama rather than Mitt Romney.

Yes, it is over-the-top dramatic, and it joins that long-running tradition of announcing that if Candidate X wins, by God, we’ll leave the country. You remember when a handful of Hollywood types declared this about Bush? It is the same argument. We laugh at those claims not because they are spurious, but because it makes the speakers look paper thin overall. The libertarians may say the argument is not the same, but really, to the rest of us, it is.

They have their reasons. Some say that a re-elected Barack Obama would be so powerless compared to an all-Republican Congress that the country would be put on pause for four years, and this would at least stop the bleeding. This of-course ignores the mid-terms of 2014, which would wind up putting Democrats back in power. Also, there’s no such thing as a hobbled Obama. He could be more dangerous, as he has already repeatedly demonstrated he can damage the country without Congress; fiats, executive orders, and regulations can do the dirty job quietly and with little fuss from the media.

Another reason that there would be so little difference between President Obama and a President Romney that we ought to just stick with the devil we know. This, too, is an argument based more on media pretensions than in careful analysis of the landscape.

No difference? None at all?

Here is a handy chart to help our libertarian friends realize that maybe their worst fears about President Romney aren’t as bad as they dramatize them to be.

Well, you get the point. Even at his worst, Governor Romney did a better job than President Obama looking at the numbers. Romney has many, many faults to be sure, but he appears to be learning. Barack Obama, on the other hand, not only knows everything, but he certainly knows more than you.

Additionally, look for Romney to become more stable and strong in his delivery over the next few months. The effect Rick Santorum is having on Romney’s campaign is sending a very clear message: you better take this stuff seriously, because Rick Santorum does and it’s showing up in the polls. Candidate Mitt Romney is seeing firsthand that a President W. M. Romney cannot goof off and get away with it. You better deliver, or you will be delivered.

On the other hand, Barack Obama has yet to demonstrate he gives a shit what you think about anything.

There. Differences clear?