Many establishment Republicans are rallying around Mitt Romney, mostly because the rest of the GOP field is an utter embarrassment. But Romney keeps making it tough for them with his parade of flips and flops.

Romney’s establishment support took a hit over the weekend when prominent essayist George Will slammed Romney in a column over his inability to be consistent. After a devastating summary of Romney’s various positions on the issues, Will concludes with this:

Romney, supposedly the Republican most electable next November, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable; he might damage GOP chances of capturing the Senate. Republican successes down the ticket will depend on the energies of the Tea Party and other conservatives, who will be deflated by a nominee whose blurry profile in caution communicates only calculated trimming.

Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from “data” (although there is precious little to support Romney’s idea that in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants is a powerful magnet for such immigrants) and who believes elections should be about (in Dukakis’s words) “competence,” not “ideology.” But what would President Romney competently do when not pondering ethanol subsidies that he forthrightly says should stop sometime before “forever”? Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?

This is a devastating critique. While Will represents the conservative wing of the GOP, he’s not part of the crazies and he has significant influence with the establishment. He’s now provided an argument against Romney’s principle claim – that of electability.