Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon - Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.Where to start here? Daniels and Huntsman probably won't run, but would be the best candidates for the "sane" part of the GOP, whatever that is. Barbour is a former tobacco lobbyist, and does a spot-on impersonation of Foghorn Leghorn. When he's talking, I'm checking my wallet. Pawlenty wants to rollback the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell" because he needs to pander to the homophobe wing of the party. Romney has never met an issue he won't flip-flop on to tell you what you want to hear. Not very impressive. I do think Romney could be competent if he wasn't trying to be somebody he isn't. This Republican field is a damn train wreck without Daniels and Huntsman, and I don't think they can win amongst the Tea Party base. I don't expect the Tea Partiers to nominate anyone I would consider entrusting a lemonade stand to.
So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.
Monday, March 7, 2011
George Will on the GOP field
Yesterday's column:
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Palin 2012!!! Then we can have another round of political and moral comments that are unclear as a bad joke or serious remark.
ReplyDeleteI love having a horribly unethical person spout (and legislate)moral wisdom to me.
Be careful what you wish for. While a Palin campaign might be the clowncar fire on the side of the interstate that you can't look away from, I do not want to take that risk.
ReplyDeleteI think we can count on the Queen of the Stupid foisting herself into the public eye for a little while longer, without risking the chance she could actually have real power. Let her tweet idiocies from the sidelines, thank you very much.