Romney has always hit his ceiling in the mid-ish 20's. Much of the race thus far has been focused on the other 75 ish percent of the party, swinging around attempting to find a NotRomney to coalesce around. Barring an amazing surge by Gingrich, Cain may have been their last, best hope for a NotRomney candidate to secure enough support to consistently beat Romney's numbers in the key lead states.
Cain is in serious trouble. IF it can be positively demonstrated that the women arrayed against him (and most especially the one who gave the press release) have been coopted or organized to attack him, then this attack would rebound in his favor. IF, however, (as is seeming more likely), the issue remains somewhat muddled, eventually coming down to the he-said-she-said, then this places a heavy cap on Cain's rising support, and will reverse the flow in a steady drip.
SO. Where will the crowd go next. Perry and Bachman have both risen and fallen. Santorum remains Cain's antithesis - with a depth of policy that is perfectly designed to appeal to conservatives, but personally unappealing. Gingrich faces his own ceiling issues because of his history and the earlier comments about Ryan.
And. At This Point In Time. JUST before voters begin to stream away from the latest flavor of the month, Romney (not exactly known for his boldness) comes out with an entitlement reform plan that is the test for leadership in this race, and in line with the ideals of the Ryan Budget, winning the praise of of the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal and National Review. This positions him to be enough of an acceptable candidate to pick up enough of the streaming Republican voters to put him ahead of the competition in a way that will be very difficult to beat.
The timing of this was slick. Holding this in reserve cost him on the front end, and probably contributed to the general distrust conservatives will always have for him, but I think it'll pay dividends for him electorally.
