Remember way back in March, when Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann launched her bid for the Republican presidential nomination and told a cheering crowd in New Hampshire, "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world at Lexington and Concord"? Never mind that the famous volley that started the Revolutionary War took place in Massachusetts.

That gaffe seems almost quaint now considering recent monumental blunders by Texas Gov. Rick Perry and pizza chain magnate Herman Cain. It's almost too painful watching videos that naturally have gone viral of Gov. Perry, during a Republican debate recently in Detroit, struggling to remember the Department of Energy as one of the three federal agencies he would eliminate, or Mr. Cain struggling to answer a routine question during an interview Monday with the with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board. Mr. Cain stared blankly for several moments when asked whether he supported President Barack Obama's handling of the revolt in Libya, before starting one answer, then stopping himself and muttering, "Uh, nope that's, that's a different one. See, I got to go back, see, got all this stuff twirling around in my head."

At least he didn't end the fiasco, as Gov. Perry did, by saying, "Oops."

The best you could say about Mr. Cain's various discombobulations - asked during an interview last month with the Christian Broadcasting Network if he was ready for such "gotcha" questions as the name of the president of Uzbekistan he replied, "When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know" - is that they momentarily make us forget his alleged record of sexual harassment.

For Republicans determined to unseat President Obama next year, the crashing and burning of so many presumptive favorites leaves them with dwindling choices.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been holding steady with the backing of about 25 percent in GOP polls, but hardline conservatives would have to hold their noses in the voting booth because of his state health care initiative as well as inconsistencies on such hot-button issues as abortion. For many conservatives the cry is, "Anybody but Romney!"

From our perspective Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman appears to be a well-qualified, well-spoken, politically consistent moderate-to-conservative Republican. Yet his decision to serve his country by accepting the post of U.S. Ambassador to China in the Obama administration is for many Republicans an unforgiveable sin. He can't rise above low, single digits.

Clearly, the Republican base and the tea party wing want an arch-conservative flame-thrower as their torch-bearer, which accounts for Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's popularity surge in the anybody-but-Romney dynamic.

But to say Mr. Gingrich has a few political liabilities is like saying Alabama has a few football fans. He is the only speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations. He claims to be for family values but has been married three times and had an affair at the same time he lambasted President Bill Clinton for carrying on with Monica Lewinsky. He now has some explaining to do over the $1.5 million in consulting fees he received over the past decade from the federally backed housing agency Freddie Mac, of which he has publicly been critic.

Given a vulnerable Democratic incumbent president, it is hard to believe this is the best Republicans can do.