POLITICO.COM : "Some believe that Obama is doomed because the economy is bad. And they believe the presidency, therefore, will be dumped in the Republicans’ lap in 2012. They are kidding themselves. The Republicans are up against a real campaigner, and if they want his job, they are going to have to step their game way up and take it from him"

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POLITICO.COM
The Republican freak show
By Roger Simon - POLITICO’s chief political columnist.
May 24, 2011


The Republican freak show

Some excerpts :

Question: If Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney were on a sinking ship, who would be saved?

Answer: America.

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Two other Republicans might still declare for the nomination: Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. If they ran as a ticket, they would be the most dynamic — and unpredictable — duo either party could offer. Forgive me if I would consider it a reporter’s dream ticket, but I would be the first in line for that campaign plane.

The Republicans who have decided not to run in 2012 have done so for a variety of reasons: personal, strategic, financial. But some have done so for one reason: They doubt any Republican can beat Obama in 2012, and they would rather wait for an open seat in 2016.

They may be wrong. At one point, George H.W. Bush looked unbeatable for reelection in 1992, but a dynamic, almost mesmerizing, campaigner, Clinton, beat him.

Who is the dynamic, almost mesmerizing, campaigner among the Republicans this time?

Well, that’s the problem. The Republicans often do not look for campaign skills when they choose a nominee. They are a party of hierarchy. “We typically look for the next person in line,” Tom Rath, a top Republican operative from New Hampshire, once told me. “We want to know: Whose turn is it?”

And if you look at the list of recent Republican nominees, you realize he is right: John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996 were all the next guys in line. They had “earned” their place in the party hierarchy. (Or, in the case of George W. Bush, his father had earned it for him.) Even Ronald Reagan lost the nomination to Gerald Ford in 1976, because Reagan was not the next guy in line. By 1980, Reagan was.

The reason the Republican race for the nomination appears chaotic is that there is no logical next guy (or woman) in line. Romney might come closest, but many question his conservative Republican bona fides.

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Is there a real nominee in this field? Someone who can win over the party in the primaries and the nation in the general?

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