Washington – The starting bell has just rung for the 2012 presidential election, and the unofficial Republican front-runner is … former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The occasion is the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, which serves as a cattle call for presidential wannabes. For the past three years, Mr. Romney has won the CPAC presidential straw poll, and in recent months, the more scientific surveys usually have shown him coming in first for 2012. Not that any of these early polls mean a whole lot. Two years ago, even as he was winning the CPAC poll, he...