Reality Bites: The GOP After Daniels, and After 2012 (The view from the Left)

Time Magazine ^ | May 22, 2011 | Michael Grunwald

[2ndDivisionVet]

The most important political story of the Obama era has been the Republican Party’s growing defiance of reality—its denial of climate science, its denunciations of Medicare cuts while proposing Medicare cuts, its denunciations of debt while proposing debt-exploding tax cuts, its resistance to financial regulation in the wake of a financial meltdown, and so on. Now the GOP’s most promising reality-based presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels, has passed up the race.

Obviously, this has big implications for 2012. Michael Scherer thinks it means Mitt Romney is a practically inevitable nominee. I’m not so sure. But I am sure that reality’s fate in the primary will have big implications beyond 2012.

There are still at least two reality-based Republicans in the race: former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who has the inconvenient distinction of serving as Obama’s ambassador to China, and former Massachusetts governor Romney, who has the even less convenient distinction of authoring the blueprint for Obama’s health care reforms. Romney is desperately trying to deny that he’s ever encountered reality in the past, and Huntsman, who actually seems to value his dignity, will face similar pressures to renounce reality if he really wants to win in 2012. But whether or not they care to admit it, they’re both serious center-right politicians.

If Huntsman or Romney wins the nomination, and then Obama wins the election, the GOP will quickly shift from “loosely tethered to reality” to “out of its freaking mind.” Remember, after its crushing defeat in 2008, the party faithful concluded that John McCain lost the election because he wasn’t conservative enough—and that George W. Bush lost his popularity because of his big spending. So the party moved even farther toward its right-wing base, casting away moderates like Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist and Michael Bloomberg....

[2ndDivisionVet]

If the Left likes some of our candidates as "reality-based" in comparison to others, can you guess what that really means?

[Bigtigermike]

SO this lefty wants us to pick either Romney or Huntsman to face Obama and if we lose with these jokers at least we will be turning to reality after the lose? please!!!!

[SatinDoll]

We vote in Palin/Cain and watch the Democrats’s heads explode.

They knew when they first saw her, they had to do everything to destroy her before 2012. She runs, she wins. It is that simple.

[JRandomFreeper]

casting away moderates like Arlen Specter,

I don't care who you are, someone drunk enough to write that is funny. That's that same guy that took Big Bertha home after getting hammered at the bar.

Arlen Specter? Moderate? LOLOLOL! Moderate democrat, maybe.

/johnny

[timbelmont]

I don’t get these opinion pieces that keep oiting Jon Huntsman as someome “reasonable” Republicans have been waiting for. From what I can tell, he only comes up as an attractive candidate in the mainstream media.

[scorchedearther]

I believe the frontrunners for the GOP nomination will be Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann.

[SatinDoll]

Huntsman, Pawlenty, and Romney are all liberal Republicans who should be registered Democrats. My suspicion is they’re Republicans because they support capitalism.

[SatinDoll]

I like them both, but Michelle Bachmann is in Congress and she lacks the executive experience to be President.

She gets elected as a governor and then runs for President, I’ll consider supporting Michelle.

[chickadee]

I think when Mitch took that door to the forehead on Friday, he saw it as a "sign" to not run.

[DaxtonBrown]

[There are still at least two reality-based Republicans in the race: former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who has the inconvenient distinction of serving as Obama’s ambassador to China, and former Massachusetts governor Romney]

Dorothy, you’ve always had it in your power to go home, Just click your heals and say “I want to go home”

Some how I keep ending up in the Land of Oz reading these liberal hallucinations. Huntsman and Romney, yeah sure. Are we back in Kansas yet?

[ansel12]

I would prefer that Mitt Romney be widely seen as the inevitable candidate and undisputed front runner before Palin announces.

I want her to come in as the underdog, in fact it is revealing that she doesn’t really seem able to win that designation and that coverage even though the media on the surface, paints her as a nothing candidate.

[ansel12]

newsbusters:
Experience tells us that the Republican presidential candidate the media prefer is the one they believe is most easily defeated.

On this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show," seven of the twelve regulars said Mitch Daniels "has the best shot to overcome his obvious flaw" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: We put it to the Matthews Meter, twelve of our regulars including Howard, Katty and Norah, “Which candidate has the best shot to overcome his obvious flaw?” Well this is surprising I guess. Seven said Mitch Daniels. Three said John Huntsman, two, one each for Mitt Romney and one for Pawlenty

[newzjunkey]

casting away moderates like Arlen Specter

WTF?? He (re)joined the Democratic party! HE DID IT, no one else!

[PieterCasparzen]

IMHO...

The farther left the Repub nominee is, the closer to nobama they are. If the Repub candidate is a “light” version of nobama, nobama wins. 2008 proved that.

Consequently, the media (left) want a Dem light Repub.

The Repub political machine, like the Dem, is spineless, and their only political tactic is compromise. They think that elections are ONLY decided by money, so they listen only to lobbyists to get their legislative agenda, and political consultants to figure out how to make that agenda palatable to voters. And any voters will do, winning is all that matters. The only voting blocks they want to pander to is the combination of voting blocks the consultants tell them they need for the current election.

Consequently, the Repub political machine will ONLY back candidates that are part of their machine.

A candidate with America and it’s citizens as their primary concern will need to build their own machine outside of the Repub machine to get to a point where they appear that they might win the primary, then they will start to get Repub machine people to defect to supporting them.

In order to get big business to back them, an “outsider” conservative candidate simply has to convince that the gov’t will shrink and the economy will improve in general under them. Since a rising tide lifts all boats, big business will view that as acceptable and simply seek to gain favors after the election, which is when the “outsider” must politely avoid cronyism and simply keep the playing field level, and stay out of the way other than that. No special favors, but not a pain to business.

[truthfreedom]

The most enthusiastic pro Palin arguments do just seem to read as accurate. A Palin romp in the Primaries seems about right.
In terms of the general, it depends on the economy, as it pretty much always does.

[Sprite518]

Oh yeah I’m sure the Left is going to give the right advice on who can defeat their candidate... LOL! This is so childish! What idiot would read this and think we better nominate a lefty in the Republican party to defeat Obama?

This article is complete rubbish! No wonder why Time magazine is hurting for subscribers.

[JSDude1]

Mr. Grunwald is really going to get “uptight” when Herman Cain or Michelle Bachamann are the “nominee” then beat President Obama in the election.. Lol it’s going to be funny. ;).

[Vigilanteman]

When it comes to the scumbag liberal enemedia, one only needs remember that Juan McCain was their boy who could do no wrong. He was enthusiastically endorsed and pushed by the New York Slimes and others. Once the nomination was secured, he was suddenly transformed into the third term of George Bush.

I not only want a candidate who is not endorsed and supported by the enemedia, I want one whom they vehemently oppose from the get-go.

[SatinDoll]

“I not only want a candidate who is not endorsed and supported by the enemedia, I want one whom they vehemently oppose from the get-go.”

The Democrats are doing everything they can to sideline Sarah Palin. No doubt - she terrifies them.

The more they talk-up Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney, the more we Conservatives know she must run!

[2ndDivisionVet]

I like both those individuals, from what I’ve seen of them, but neither will be the Republican nominee for president. We have never elected someone to the White House without federal elective or flag officer experience, and Mr. Cain has neither. We have only elected one person president with only the House of Representatives on their resume and that was in a weird four-way race.