Mitt Romney builds case for inevitability

From Politico:

Click the link for the full story, but here are the opening paragraphs:

HANOVER, N.H – Hours after Chris Christie signaled he believes Mitt Romney is the Republican party’s inevitable nominee, Romney and the rest of the GOP field went about proving him right.

Romney again outclassed the opposition in Tuesday’s Bloomberg/Washington Post debate. Again, none of the other GOP contenders laid a glove on him. And in a telling move that seemed to acknowledge the limits of Rick Perry’s candidacy, the Texas governor effectively tried to survive the debate by not losing it.

After starting the day with a coveted endorsement from Christie, the New Jersey governor who may have posed the most serious threat to Romney’s candidacy, the former Massachusetts governor ended it by standing above an increasingly muddled group of rivals. Aided by a group of competitors who’ve risen and fallen — or not run altogether — the former Massachusetts governor’s steady-as-he-goes strategy has returned him to unqualified frontrunner