So, dead heat between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in Iowa, eh? Guess nobody bothered to write in Haywood Jablomie, Jack Meehoff or I.P. Freeley.

Watching the food fight over the GOP pestilential nomination has been like watching a Coen Brothers treatment of Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.” Or maybe a round of musical chairs with all the participants crazed on mescaline.

Mitt Romney keeps smiling because he owns all the chairs, the building in which they sit and the surrounding properties to boot. But that doesn’t make him any less a bag of runny owlshit that nobody’s buying as long as there’s anything else for sale.

The big cheese may eventually stand alone. All the smart money’s on it. But right now he’s doing a tango with Man-On-Dog Santorum, and he can’t be feeling too frothy about it.