I think New York Times’ Nate Silver may be onto something when he writes that the next GOP presidential candidate may not actually be Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney or any of the Tea Party or lesser known candidates:

Republicans are dangerously close to having none of their candidates be acceptable to rank-and-file voters and the party establishment. It’s not clear what happens when this is the case; there is no good precedent for it. But since finding a nominee who is broadly acceptable to different party constituencies is the foremost goal of any party during its nomination process, it seems possible that Republicans might begin to look elsewhere.

A recent Gallup poll asked Republican voters directly about which candidates they’d consider acceptable nominees. Only two, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, were deemed acceptable by a majority of Republican voters. The other six candidates (including Herman Cain, who has since dropped out) were considered unacceptable by a majority of the party’s voters.

In fact, of the eight candidates listed in this graphic,

Credit: Gallup

six have at one time or another been associated with the Tea Party, and they are all are unacceptable candidates for 50 percent or more of those who were polled. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann have been among the Tea Party’s most ardent flagship candidates. Bachmann formed and is the chairwoman of the Tea Party Caucus, and Paul has been called the “intellectual godfather of the Tea Party.” It is possible that the tide may be turning against the Tea Party, since the two “establishment” candidates hold the top two positions in this poll and are at the top of most other polls. Cain was third for a time until he dropped out of the race — or, “suspended his campaign” as he phrased it — after one allegation of promiscuity after another smashed his candidacy to bits.

As I have said before, I think Romney’s Mormonism will keep him out of the running, as well as his more moderate stances on gay rights and abortion. It doesn’t help, of course, that he was governor of Massachusetts when that state passed a health care bill similar to the one Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010. Romney’s faith will not win him many votes from evangelical Christians, although to his credit — and equal discredit — he has sometimes either downplayed or spoken around some of the more bizarre tenants of his religion. For instance, as in this passage from the above-linked NPR article:

Mitt Romney has a well-earned reputation as a flip-flopper. But it’s one thing to flip-flop on your politics, and quite another to flip-flop on your faith. So it came as something of a surprise when, during an interview earlier this year with George Stephanopoulos, the presidential candidate disputed the suggestion that Christ would someday return to the United States rather than the Middle East. Mormons, he said, believe “that the Messiah will come to Jerusalem. … It’s the same as the other Christian tradition.”

This was both technically correct and completely misleading: The church’s position is that, while Christ will indeed appear at the Mount of Olives, he will also build a new Jerusalem in Jackson County, Missouri, which will serve as the seat of his 1,000-year reign on Earth. Romney had conveniently neglected to mention this part of his church’s doctrine.

Yes, NPR is not making that up. Jackson County, Missouri. That said, Gingrich is, at present, the only viable GOP candidate in my mind. But even he has “personal baggage,” as Silver calls it and isn’t exactly known as a devout churchgoer either. Time will tell whether a third “establishment” candidate will emerge (Silver mentions Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels, Tim Pawlenty or Chris Christie as possibilities), but if the election were to take place right now, Gingrich would most likely be the guy. Meanwhile, the Tea Party, having failed to move the center permanently to the far right, is in serious jeopardy of becoming completely irrelevant.