(The Root) — Little about the GOP candidate appeared to qualify him for the White House as he sweated freely over foreign-policy debate questions Monday night. Clearly ill-suited to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney fidgeted in his chair, fudged his Afghanistan position and, in the cross talk over Iraq, seemed on the verge of proffering another $10,000 bet on whether his position had changed.

Despite losing two of three debates, Romney has going for him a poll-obsessed media keen on a close race sustaining their $2.5 billion flow of TV ads. Plus, he can count on reflexive support from the dominant population backing his party. And what exactly is the makeup of the GOP?

Alas, in this year of our Lord 2012, the Republican Party structurally is 97.9 percent non-African American, fielding only 47 blacks among the 4,411 delegates at its Tampa convention!

With blacks constituting some 13 percent of the electorate, the GOP, win or lose, is likely to register a popular vote that is 99.5 percent non-African American. And this near lily-white party operates in a diverse republic — with a black president, who attracted 43 percent of the white vote in ’08.