Jonathan Bernstein at the Washington Post Plum Line has a nice sharp little “Note to pundits“:
Here’s what you need to know about the Republican candidate field: this is it. No one starts running for president in August, less than six months before the voters start getting involved in Iowa and New Hampshire, and has any chance at all. At least, it’s never happened since the modern process has been fully in place (say, by 1980). And there’s no reason to expect it now…
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The other thing I’d say to Republicans disappointed in the current choices (as Ross Douthat says he is today) is this: What you’re upset with isn’t the candidate — it’s the party. It’s inconceivable that anyone could get the Republican nomination while using anything but solid Tea Party rhetoric on pretty much every issue. They’re all going to claim that taxes should never, ever, ever be raised no matter what, that half of what the government does is evil or unconstitutional or whatever, that the scientific consensus on climate is some sort of crazed conspiracy, and so on down the line. I’ve been saying for some time now that the odds are against Republicans actually nominating a candidate who believes crazy things — but the odds of them nominating someone who says crazy things has gone up.
There is no Man on A White Horse remaining who can ride up and save the Republican Party, and its media enablers, from themselves. There’ll be no shortage of horse shit, however.
DanF
Can they point to even one moderately sane GOP freshman senator or congressman from a purple or even light blue state? It is indeed the party.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
Then she tore off the Rick Perry mask she was wearing, and Sarah Palin proclaimed, “But I am NOT a man!”
The Republican hordes stomped and cheered. The rafters shook with applause. Newt Gingrich fainted. Sarah Palin began to float in the air, and no one noticed the death lasers installed in her eyes …
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Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Dee Dee Meyers thinks Rick speaks to lots and lots of people. Oh, and now the democrats see what George and Laura experienced.
JGabriel
@DanF:
ONLY RINO’S ARE MODERATE, YOU COMMIE!
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Alwhite
Agreed about the party but disagree like hell with his innuendo that they will find a “moderate” that will save them, or that any one of the current crop of monsters is really a moderate in disguise.
Timmy campaigned as a moderate in MN but ruled a hard right line for 8 years. Boy Blunder was even worse in both aspects. This crop runs hard right and will feel no constraints not imposed by Democrats if one of them wins.
JGabriel
It’ll be Perry.
Romney couldn’t get re-elected as governor of MA, and couldn’t beat John McCain in the last GOP primary — and even George Bush could beat John McCain.
Romney will not win the nomination.
Bachmann is a GOP House Rep. from Minnesota. She wouldn’t be able to carry her own state in a general election. Bachmann won’t be getting the nomination either.
Palin couldn’t finish her first term as governor, much less get re-elected. And she hasn’t even announced whether she’s running for the nomination yet. Palin will not win.
That leaves Rick Perry (unless he verbally self-destructs), who is the only one of the “front runners” who has won more than one statewide election.
Everyone else in the contest is a joke. Well, more of a joke.
Edited to Add: I’ve no idea who the VP pick will be, though he/she will probably be from IN, VA, NC. OH, or FL.
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Valdivia
@JGabriel:
It will be McDonell. Or Haley. But not Rubio who is saving himself for 2016.
TheHalfrican
Ugh, that Douthat article. That guy needs to stick to Christian apologist blogging and leave the sappy Republican apologist columns to the professionals, like Peggy Noonan.
And Christie deserves to be horse-whipped for that ARC tunnel bullshit.
JGabriel
@Valdivia: I started thinking Rubio after I commented, but you’re probably right. I can see Haley if Romney were to get the nomination, but I’m not sure what Haley, another southern governor from a conservative state, would add to a ticket with Perry.
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Valdivia
@JGabriel:
I keep thinking that Rubio might be tempted but I think he thinks he is Obama. He will give a rousing speech at the convention. Then he will spend 2 more years in the Senate and writing neocon articles for the WSJ and then start campaigning and win as the great non white hope in 2016. Right now he has been in the Senate barely a year, has very little campaign experience and is too young. If he is smart he will keep to his plan. I think you are right about Haley and Mitt. I guess Perry will have to go with someone from the midwest (Daniels?) or more moderate and money connected if he gets the nod. But given how he started I am now wondering if he will flame out.
MikeBoyScout
Was there really ever a serious question about the GOP putting forward anything but corporatist oligarchical teabagging horseshit dressed in jeebus saves garb in 2012?
bkny
i’m thinking rick perry may flameout afterall once he’s up and running for realz. essentially making a threat against the fed chairman — not to mention accusation of treason (by someone advocating secession) at least bush was subtle when he implied treason by his detractors:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, making his maiden campaign swing in Iowa after jumping into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested Monday night that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be committing an act of treason by printing more money between now and November 2012.
Responding to a question about the Federal Reserve at a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Perry said: “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/political-economy/post/perry-takes-aim-at-bernanke/2011/08/15/gIQAXwqIIJ_blog.html?hpid=z2
Ron
@bkny: I don’t think he’ll see any serious repercussions over that because IOKIYAR.
Jeffro
I used to tell people that the Tea Party was the rump of the Republican Party. Now I just refer to them as one and the same, ’cause they are.
Ron
Oh man, I was curious to see if this was being reported anywhere in the MSM, and it was in the WSJ. The first commenter hates Perry, but uh, is in the crazee world. He accuses Perry of supporting the infamous “NAFTA superhighway” which is part of a grand conspiracy to create the North American Union. He also railed against Perry for his executive order to make girls going into 6th grade get the Gardisil shot. My favorite bit there was “Do you want to make your wives and daughters get vaccinated against their will?”. Uh, don’t most public schools require all sorts of vaccinations? Man, it’s scary what kind of BS people will swallow.
bkny
@Ron: i know … it’s maddening. but someone on the obama campaign thinks mitt romney is weird… OMGOMGOMG.
TheHalfrican
I predicted Santorum would be VP in 08, especially if Romney’s The Guy, but he has severely under-performed as a primary candidate. He’s clearly scared to really play the anti-gay card now (Savage haunts his nightmares like Freddy Krueger), and his pro-life stumps are so dull and boilerplate, I bet most of the GOP primary watchers don’t know this guy cradled a dead fetus while kissing it and taking pictures.
For a while I thought Herman Cain might get it, but he’s been sinking for a while and now he’s “humble and contrite for any statements I have made that might have caused offense to Muslim Americans and their friends”. Or as Freepers would put it, he’s surrendering to the Islamic Caliphate.
Bachmann would be Romney’s pick now, I suppose. I feel like Perry could pick anybody.
JGabriel
@MikeBoyScout:
None whatsoever. You’re acting like people here are surprised, when they’re not. Or is the exasperation directed towards the media rather than us?
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KCinDC
I don’t know if this open letter from Robert Stacy McCain to Sarah Palin is a failed joke, a nervous breakdown, or what, but it’s one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen from someone who presumably considers himself a “journalist”.
JGabriel
@Ron:
Yes, but Bernanke is a Republican appointee, by Bush II. Perry broke Reagan’s 11the commandment, which is minor loophole in the IOKIYAR rule.
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JGabriel
@KCinDC: That is pathetic. Nice catch.
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Xenos
@Ron:
Not to mention needing a Rubella vaccination to get a marriage license…
Left unasked, what kind of ignorant asshole refuses to get their vaccinations? Even the mercury issue is long gone nowadays… this is reminiscent of the flouridation panics from the old days.
Omnes Omnibus
@KCinDC: Has this man ever had a date he didn’t have to pay?
KCinDC
@JGabriel, I should’ve credited Julian Sanchez. If it hadn’t been for his tweet I’d never have seen it.
cleek
now if our own wingnuts could learn that lesson.
agrippa
Aug 16, 2011.
Note the current date.
Election: Nov 2012.
Mark S.
Where are the “Save us Obi-wan Petraeus, you’re our only hope” columns? Or has the general lost his aura after Afghanistan?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Don’t tell the Blind Faithful at Conservatives 4 Palin.
@Ron: I actually think the vaccinations will be a big problem for him amongst Das Base. They equated the vaccinations with encouraging little girls to have sex. (Personally, I equated it with unleashing a vaccine that wasn’t properly tested on the targeted age group to suck up to big Pharma, but I’m just an elitist egghead.)
Oh wait, he’s asking forgiveness for that one.
superdestroyer
Part of this is due to the Bush clan. They wanted the Republican Party to be their own personal party that would continue to nominate and elect members of the Bush Clan. Thus, the Bush wing of the Republican Party failed to develop any new talent and the Bush wing promoted idiots.
Now that the Bush clan is totally discredited, the Repubicans are left with no one to run.
What political scientist should be looking at is what happens when the Republican Party completes its collapse and the U.S. becomes a one party state. What will politics be like when the Democratic primary in 2016 is the real election for President. What happens when more than 50% of the seats in Congress are safe seats for the incumbents and few if any incumbents face challengers.
Mark S.
@bkny:
I hope you’re right, but it might not happen in the Republican primary. But I doubt all this dick-swaggering, “am I carrying a gun or not?” bullshit is going to play very well outside of deep red states.
I also have a dream that the press will shine a spotlight on his actions in the Willingham case. The majority of the country may favor the death penalty, but they don’t think “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.” They actually find it morally reprehensible.
The Other Bob
At this point I am starting to think that the guy on the white horse, riding to save the Republican party, might be the guy in the Oval Office who body-snatched Obama. The person running for reelection is an uncharismatic, uninspiring boring, weak twin of the guy we elected.
I keep waiting for the Obama guns to come out blazing, but they never do. Watching the coverage of him in Iowa, I have to wonder if his heart is in it.
Egilsson
Once Fred Thompson enters the race, things will change baby!
Mark S.
Perrynomics:
We’ve been getting slaughtered by inflation! Tight monetary policies are just what we need to get this economy booming again!
This country is fucked!
TheHalfrican
@cleek:
lol, Al Gore? But I thought they said he was just the same as Bush…
Ron
@Xenos: Oh, there are plenty of anti-vaccination nuts out there. Even though the vaccination/autism link study has been discredited there are still gullible people out there willing to swallow that crap.
evap
Guilliani to the rescue!
Amir Khalid
@superdestroyer:
Oh, it doesn’t take a political scientist. I could tell you what happens, because it has happened in my country with the Barisan Nasional coalition. A ruling party with no serious opposition gets entrenched in power, and develops an all-too-cozy relationship with big money and the ruling elites. It starts to think and act as though it, and not the people, were the rightful owner of all political power. It might rule benevolently, according to its lights; but when it must choose between the good of the people and its hold on power, it would always choose the latter. In short, your Democratic Party with an unchallenged hold on power would turn into the Republican party with a different name.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Please don’t say White Horse. You’re gonna make both Mittens and Huntsman’s leg start to tingle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Prophecy
redshirt
@Mark S.: Patreus is horribly tainted – he’s served in the Demoncrat Obama’s Administration! A traitor now by default.
No compromise! No surrender!
Holden Pattern
Even most “moderate” Republicans have spouted internally incoherent anti-reality claptrap for decades now, on sex, religion, the environment, health care, war, economics, the welfare state, etc. It is not possible to be sane and believe all of the things that Republican orthodoxy requires. Sure, on any given issue the positions taken may follow from the premises given (though those premises are often insane), but line up issue positions next to each other and they can’t all be true, even if you accept the insane premises.
The Republicans and their apparatchiks, paid and unpaid, created an environment within the party in which only someone like Bush II or Perry could succeed — someone insane or playing insane. McCain was a standard-issue militaristic conservative, but he ran as a full-on wingnut, because it was the only way to win the nomination.
So, fuck Douthat and his ilk, who now complain that the camel they led into the tent is smelling up the joint. He helped make an entire political party insane, he took money to build a career feeding into the thoughtless paranoia and bigotry of the wingnut base, instead of trying to fight it.
Samara Morgan
@Holden Pattern:
this is true.
like i said on mistermix post, pandering to the base has created a purity stratijacket for potential republican candidates.
Razib Khan (posting as David Hume) had an interesting post about how all republican presidential candidates had to be pro-creationism and anti-abortion at a minimum. It seems to have been deleted, but here is a note where he mentions the original post.
The GOP has become ~99% white (NHC) conservative christian nativists.
This a big problem for conservative elites, because any candidate is forced to conform to a rigid platform of ideological purity including not just revenue oppo, global warming denialism, but anti-choice and pro-creationism (anti-science) public positions.
this is a big problem for republicans, and why this election season season is such a freakshow for GOP candidates. This may be the last demographic election for the GOP, and as long as their candidates are forced into an unappealing straightjacket of extreme conservative posistions….their time to demagogue jobs is limited because the longterm trends are against them.
and note..these positions are only extreme in the context of the broader American electorate.
they are mainstream in the context of the GOP base.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: disagree. Because of red/blue genetics and the historical destruction of the Whigs. A new conservative party will arise.
but it will be chastened and humbled.
The Barisan National coalition had to adopt a version of Islam-lite to win a majority.
Do you think a “compassionate” variety of christofascist nativism is going to colonize the democratic party?
nope, because in America we have the separation of church and state. In Malaysian you just fake it.
Tonybrown74
@The Other Bob:
I don’t understand this. Have you never paid attention to politics in your life? You really think President Obama gettin’ all ethnic and up in someone’s grill is going to accomplish shit?
In the name of all that is un-Holy, I swear some of you just voted for him because you wanted Angry Black Man as president, like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction or Snakes on a Plane!
Samara Morgan
@The Other Bob: guns blazin’ ? nevah gunna happen.
read me.
Samara Morgan
@Valdivia:
the demographic timer is against him.
Lojasmo
@JGabriel:
perry trails obama in Texas…widely
Bulworth
But I thought Perry was the Man on A White Horse…
Samara Morgan
not done yet, Anne Laurie.
Paul Ryan
lets face it Douchehat just put up the batsignal for MOAR LEGIT conservative candidates.
my prediction?
Perry/Palin 2012
Holden Pattern
@Bulworth:
FTFY
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan: That hopelessly confused line of argument only confirms for me that you don’t understand Malaysia’s politics any better than you do America’s.
Barisan Nasional’s (or more precisely UMNO’s) religiosity compared to PAS’s doesn’t have anything to do with my argument, which is about what happens when a ruling party gets entrenched in power for too long. From what I’ve seen that holds true here and in Japan with the Liberal Dem0ocrats, who held power continuously for some four decades after World War 2.
Do try to understand this: UMNO is an ethnic Malay party, and its politics are all about Malay interests. (By constitutional definition, a Malaysian must be of Malay ethnicity and Muslim to be accepted as Malay.) Its main coalition partners are the Chinese and Indian ethnic parties.
PAS is, nominally at least, a non-ethnic Islamic party. Only since the 2008 general election has PAS been in a coalition with a base broad enough to even hope to challenge Barisan at the federal level i.e. Pakatan Rakyat. But its fundamentalism has been a constant source of friction with its partners and it’s not assured that Pakatan can stay united over the long term.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid:
like i SAID. NO separation of church and state. you are comparing apples to oranges.
the GOP will rise again in America. because of red/blue genetics and the consent of the governed.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid:
lol.
i totally unnerstand. Both the Barisans and the GOP are religious parties. that is what they have to do to win.
boss bitch
@The Other Bob:
Maybe you haven’t noticed but Obama doesn’t jump when the media/blogs tell him to jump.
Davis X. Machina
@Amir Khalid: Or the Massachusetts state Democratic party. The only two Republicans I ever voted for were in Mass. governor’s races.
Jay in Oregon
I wholeheartedly support this initiative, especially if they advocate “looser building codes” on what amounts to a giant oil rig…
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html
Alex S.
I wonder what has to happen until one of these disappointed pundits find out that they actually want a republican Obama, but can’t bring themselves to vote for th ereal one because of the (D).
One guy could jump into the race and change it within 24 hours: Jeb Bush.
I don’t think that Perry will choose Rubio…Romney might pick him, but not Perry. It’s too much of the South, and Rubio’s ethnicity works against Texas jingoism. Theoretically, Olympia Snowe would be good, a woman, foreign policy credentials, different region, moderate image. But it’s probably going to be the typical republican cute empty face, like Quayle or Agnew… so maybe it’s Thune, or Pawlenty.
Samara Morgan
@Davis X. Machina: again, Khalid’s analogy is false. it is impossible for white christian nativism to colonize the democratic party like Islam has colonized the majority party in Malaysia.
Because of the separation of church and state in America.
However, like Barisans, the GOP is already a religious party, and is already corrupt.
Elie
@Xenos:
this vaccination stuff is very much alive in the Western United States and also prominent among libertarian and even some ultra liberals up here in WA state. It goes hand in hand with the other weird social phenomenon that is growing in prevalence here: Home schooling. Home schooling with no vaccinations. Smart.
There is some discussion of charging some of the docs who are even seeing non vaccinated children in their offices. There have been several instances where non vaccinated children introduced infectious disease to children in a waiting room.
All this just to say that this is one of those paranoid scary things rumbling under the surface that Perry is trying to use as a certain kind of dog whistle for a special type of political zombie.
Elie
@Amir Khalid:
I disagree. (Not of course with what happened in your country). I think that the Republican party would reconstitute itself from all the moderate republicans that were driven out of the party. They are still around and probably apalled. Why wouldnt they become leaders for a new Republican party?
Elie
@boss bitch:
Oh — why did you respond to it?
Actually, there was a good video clip of Obama going toe to toe with some Tea Partier. He was civil but clipped the guy off saying that “it was obvious that (he) didn’t want to listen” to what Obama was saying. He was working the handshake line and the Tea Partiers were there to “confront” him. He seemed pretty “into it” to me.
Elie
@Alex S.:
I have thought that perhaps Perry is a stalking horse for Jeb Bush from the right. I am probably crazy, but I could see Bush entering and blowing up the field…that that he is himself without baggage, but he is a straight up guy compared to these yahoos
Kane
Rather than adapt their policies to a changing world, republicans are convinced that all they need is a dynamic frontman and a new marketing slogan to make the sale.
Although they would never admit it, republicans desperately want their own Obama, or at least someone who can be seen as dynamic with as much star power. They have been searching in vain for their new Ronald Reagan for decades.
Samara Morgan
@Elie: nah, Perry is a boogeyman for the Draft-a-quasi-sane-republican campaign.
its Ryan this week.
Jeb Bush is too soon, becuz Iraq is planting a boot in America’s ass in december, and the conservative elite welded Dubya onto the OIF/OEF failcake when they kicked off the Tea Party.
Samara Morgan
@Kane: this true.
most of the Obama hatred is just jealously.
phil
Are we taking bets yet on who will be the the 3rd party candidate next year?
James E. Powell
@Tonybrown74:
While I am sure there are plenty of people who want to see the president go medieval on the Republicans asses, what the base is hankering for is somebody, somewhere outside of blogs, to go on the attack against the Republican narrative and to call them out on their bullshit.
People are looking to the president because there is no one else speaking in strong terms. It’s puzzle why we don’t have anyone like that, but it is clear that we don’t.
The Other Bob
@James E. Powell:
Thanks James. I love it how I say the President needs to fight more and suddenly I am accused of voting for him becuase I wanted a black gangster as President. WTF?
Dang, and I am an Obot.
priscianusjr
@Elie:
Samara Morgan
@James E. Powell: not a puzzle.
read this.
Progressive Angst and Obama–its not him, its YOU
it would be a great PSA if one of our soi disant liberal frontpagers would make post on it.