Toi:
if any litvishe gadol came out and proclaimed with full sincerity that one of his colleagues was Moshiach, the firestorm of condemnation would take approx. 5 minutes to fall.
From whom? Only from amhoratzim and apikorsim, who don’t believe that Moshiach is a bosor vodom.
Go ask any chabadsker to unequivocally proclaim he’s not moshiach. They will never, ever do that.
Of course not. How could anyone unequivocally proclaim such a thing? I think it is unlikely that the Lubavitcher Rebbe will be the moshiach, but I have no basis for ruling it out completely, and neither do you. You and the messianics are guilty of the same error: you both are trying to add an item 12a, to the 13 ikkarim. They want to say “I believe that the moshiach will come, and it will be the Rebbe”, and you want to say “I believe that the moshiach will come and it will be anyone but the Rebbe”. You’re both equally wrong.