Seeing The Elephant

Ed Rogers, "Huntsman-Bachman 2012". May 26

Andrea Neal,"No way to pick a president". May 24

Y'KNOW, you gotta wonder where all the Reasonable Reagan Republicans were when Reagan was President.

ED Rogers is a former Reagan administration functionary, a DC lobbyist/ PR specialist, and a frequent teevee talker.

Andrea Neal is the former Robert Welch Chair of Editorial Page Editing at the Indianapolis Star.

The only thing restraining my glee at a second straight election cycle in which Republicans justifiably hate every one of their candidates is the fact that Mitch Daniels is no longer among them. Well, that and the fact that this giant, self-inflicted sucking chest wound benefits the Democratic party. So two things.

Neal bemoans the whole fetid process. She does this because it robbed us unfairly of the services of Mitch Daniels, thus requiring 2% of the Republican electorate to find someone equally unexciting to vote for.

It excludes candidates like Daniels. He is intelligent, practical, experienced at governing, knowledgeable about world issues and committed to helping the United States solve its biggest problems.

What a blow to the intellectual traditions of a party which reveres President Alzheimer's, drooled over President Flightsuit, and made Sarah Palin a best-selling author.

Neal does try a little Soviet-style Photoshopping:

How many Republicans thought McCain/Palin was the best possible ticket in 2008?

Of course Palin was McCain's pick, not the voters'. And McCain won as fair and square as primaries get; there wasn't any Bush-style campaign trail shenanigans in '08. The most I recall was some reporter asking why none of Romney's fourteen sons had volunteered to go fight any of the wars they all supported. The Republican party was fractured, and McCain took the middle ground. And sewed up the nomination before the convention.

So let's just mention, again, and we'll keep on mentioning it so long as it takes: Mitch Daniels can blame "his family" all he wants, and his sycophants can blame "the Evil Media, and the absurd nominating process" all they want; the fact is he was a resource drain on someone who might actually win the nomination. Same as his BFF Haley Barbour.

I happen to think that if Mike Huckabee had declared Daniels would have, too. With Huckabee gone there's no credible wingnut threat anymore. Everybody left, or anybody likely to get in, is whatcha might call amenable to the Republican establishment. Palin's the exception, but she can do whatever she wants anyway. This bus tour thing is a laugh, or at least the people pretending to take it seriously are. Her disapproval rating is below dental caries and just above One of David Vitter's Used Diapers. Her people are just pushing her out there to keep the franchise alive, and a hand in the process. Which brings us to:

Huntsman and Bachmann should have a meeting of the minds and offer themselves as a Huntsman-led ticket before the Iowa caucuses next year.

Was that a groundswell of excitement, or did my dishwasher just start a cycle?

But beating Obama will require a fresh approach. He will not be weakened by a primary challenge, and as yet there does not appear to be a left-wing third-party candidate who could erode his support in the general election.

Churchill/ Ayers, 2012!

On the other hand, if our ticket were intact and the party were unified early, such as by next spring, fundraising would be much easier and our team would be tested and seasoned well ahead of the fall campaign.

Pony/ Ice Cream 2012!

Meanwhile, Rep. Michele Bachmann is a GOP leader to watch. She is a star in the party and bulletproof with our right wing. She is more thoughtful than she gets credit for. The Tea Party will follow her to the ends of the earth, and her positions on the budget and the economy are where most Republicans’ hearts and minds fall.

Look; let's just skip the qualifiers of the next couple paragraphs, as well as the media and The Left eager to "Palinize" her, though I can't really imagine the media eager to do anything at all about Michelle Bachman, and if the Left isn't doing everything it can to win her the nomination then it's worse off than I imagined. Once you have reached this point--let's call it "putting 12 year olds behind the breastworks at Richmond"--you are fucking sunk. You're not going to shine your bayonets all night long and blind the rest of us with glinted sunlight the next morning. Reform your goddam party. If you'd like to reform the process while we're at it, then fine; reform your goddam party first, so that a Republican can mention "campaign finance" without being dragged out of his cell at midnight and strung up under the nearest bridge.