Pawlenty Quits On Romney and What It Means for The GOP in 2016

Ever since Tim Pawlenty threw in the towel on his presidential bid, he's been one of Mitt's most outspoken supporters. Whereas other Republican contenders like Perry and Santorum have never really said anything gushingly nice about Romney, offering just tepid endorsements, Pawlenty always went that extra mile and praised as if he really meant it.

So to see T-Paw quit on Mitt to head up a large financial services lobby group says quite a bit about the rapid descent of Mitt's chances in November. One has to think this job opening would've still been available for Pawlenty in about five weeks, making his abrupt resignation all that more befuddling. But Tim likely knew what Nate Silver recently wrote about, that a candidate in Romney's position at this point in the race rarely pulls out a victory come Election Day.

But what I find even more interesting is the fact that Pawlenty took this job at all. Of course, I'm sure it's a cushy gig that pays very well. However, at the start of the primary season, Pawlenty quickly became a favorite pick to be the Republican nominee. He was the presumed reasonable one who would be able to appeal to the widest audience. Eventually he washed out and yet many a pundit doubled-down and put him atop the list for 2016.

Question: when was the last time you saw a presidential front-runner coming from the ranks of a lobbyist organization, much less one that fronts for Wall Street firms? I would have to say never. So what gives?

It's obvious Pawlenty believes Romney has no shot to win. But I also have to think Pawlenty has concluded that his party will remain crazy for the next several years -- or at least for the next four. If he wanted to run again in 2016, it's unlikely he would've accepted such a perception-challenged position, one that would significantly compromise his candidacy. Yet as mentioned, Pawlenty is sensible and not psycho and that's a huge negative in a party that celebrates the likes of Bachmann, Cain and Santorum. We're starting to hear more calls for the Republican Party to change its ways, to quit catering to the lunatic fringe and become more moderate. And yet Pawlenty for one thinks such a transformation is a pipe dream, so he's taking the big $$$$.

What a shame. With Romney fast sinking in the polls, I'm hearing and reading how it's not so much his fault but rather his party is to blame. The modern-day GOP makes it near impossible for any candidate to appeal to the wider electorate, forcing someone like Romney or John McCain to disavow their record and recite the party talking points -- points that drift ever-more to the right with each passing election season. I've been writing about this Republican problem for years, how it forces electable (read: not crazy) candidates to twist and turn and tie themselves up in knots like a pretzel, siding with the positions that are too extreme and often make no sense or even conflict with one another.

It's been clear for some time that as long the GOP continues on this course to seemingly outdo itself in a race to ultimate insanity, it will have less and less of chance to win the White House again (at least fairly, without voter suppression or help from the SCOTUS). While this may be a good thing for Democrats, it's a tragedy for the country, which in the end is all that matters.

Now that Bachmann, Trump, Cain and Gingrich have all experienced their relatively brief rise and fall in what is the clownish GOP presidential race, may we please learn from the past and not spend too much time on Santorum. He too will be forgotten in short-order as he has almost no shot of becoming the Republican nominee, and even less of a shot of becoming the next president, so can we just not waste time profiling his extreme positions and outrageous statements only to see him fade in the near future. Please?

I must confess, I watched a bit of Saturday's NH debate and hearing Romney trot out the red-meat lines to please the hard-right GOP base, I continue to wonder if he's sort of winking to the rest of us more moderate Americans, assuring us that he has to say this stuff to win the nomination but that he doesn't really believe it so please don't be afraid. OR I wonder, does he actually believe these far-right positions that he now claims to believe in?? If he were to be the next president, would he actually become the second coming of GW? Obviously, it's not just me wondering about these questions, but Republicans likewise are befuddled and fear he would instead tack back to his more moderate days as governor of MA.

What's hilarious about this is the modern-day Republican Party has forced it to be this way. The party and its base are so far to the right, so extreme, that if they were to elect one of their true zealots as their nominee, even they have to know that such a person would have little chance of winning in November. So the party is left with a once more moderate figure, such as McCain and Romney, and yet to win the nomination via appeasing and placating the base, the McCains and Romneys must twist and turn, contorting themselves like a pretzel to rid themselves of their pasts and try to convince the doubters that they now think like them, that they've seen the light, that the far right agenda is a beautiful thing.

And yet the base still doesn't quite believe, offering only tepid support, and meanwhile if/when this newly-converted moderate gets to be the GOP nominee, the job becomes increasingly difficult for now this person must try to appeal to the more moderate general electorate. And yet too much has already been said by the GOP nominee, too many statements endorsing far-right positions and criticizing programs and beliefs that are popular with the majority of voters -- and it's all captured on videotape, ready-made for 30-second ads.

You can see how the GOP has more or less made it near impossible for one of their own to make a successful run at the White House. It's difficult enough to have everything break your way to come out on top when making a go of it for president, but given the obstacle course that the GOP has created in addition to all of the other obstacles that come with the territory of running, the odds of succeeding certainly plummet that much more.

Fellow Democrats and liberals could say, "Bravo!" Let their kooky dysfunction remain, thus benefiting the likes of Obama and future Dems looking to reside in the WH. However, the problem is as long as they remain extreme in their views, not waking up to the problems that stem from it as described above, enough far-right Senators and Congresspersons will likely win office to serve as strident obstructionists. As we've come to learn, a Democrat as President is much less effective with these folks playing partisan games, as opposed to when Reagan was in office and Democrats controlled Congress. I don't recall then the Dems refusing to compromise on everything Reagan tried to do....

If Romney were to beat Obama (just saying), and the GOP continued to control Congress, Romney would conceivably be able to pass many of the things Obama would like to pass but hasn't been able to due simply to partisan obstruction. Suddenly stimulus-like measures would be framed in a new way and Republicans would rally around and support them. It would have nothing to do with Romney and everything to do with party-line politics in this day and age.

So for the good of the country, I believe it's better for the GOP to finally realize the quagmire they've created for themselves and to once and for all begin to purge the far-right nutballs and wingnuts and return to the days when the party was more moderate and reasonable. I never would've thought that those days would be more like Reagan, since he was thought to be fairly extreme at that time, but in comparison to today he's just a bit right of FDR! It would ultimately increase their chances of getting a Republican back in the White House, but more so it would help to get this country on the right course to recovery. Isn't that what counts, country first?

Having said all of this I continue to be amazed at how much Obama has been able to actually accomplish despite stern resistance from the opposing party. Just take a look at the chart below, showing the progress he has made on the job front, all the while receiving no help from Republicans. Bravo indeed.

Obama speaks tough on terrorism and the right attacks him. Kevin Drum says, "The dynamics here are certainly turning deeply weird, aren't they?" and that the candidates may start "bending themselves into a pretzel" concerning the issues.

Things have been weird for some time now, particularly for McCain and the GOP. I've used the word "pretzel" repeatedly for months to describe the current state of politicking, as the far right has forced McCain to twist and contort on positions in hopes of appeasing the strident base (threw olive branch to religious right, tax cut waffling, waterboard/torture flip-flop, to name a few). Now we see the right criticizing the endorsement of seeking out and destroying terrorists simply because the other side favors it. What next from the kooky far right? And will McCain twist so much he'll eventually snap?

Obama should be fully prepared to expose the two-sided mouth of McCain. Straight-talking maverick, my arse.

Speaking of McCain, looks like he's run into quite a few problems (click here and here and here).

Pretzel Logic

Wow, you talk about a flip-flop. Mr. Strait Talk has been adamantly against waterboarding, but that didn't stop McCain from voting against its ban this past week. I guess he chose politics over principle, throwing another bone to the far right folks he's desperately trying to win over. Raise your hand if you want someone in the White House who will spend four more years trying to appease this crazed faction of the GOP....

I had to laugh, Newsweek had a story on how much McCain will have to twist and squirm to win over the right and yet not completely alienate the moderates and independents. We're talking a pretzel dance. Representing the right were captions of notable figures: James Dobson, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Beck. What an illustrious crew! If you're on the right, are you proud to have these characters representing your side, your views? If so, you need your head examined.

It used to be the right was known for Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley Jr., and Ronald Reagan. It's gone from the semi-reasonable to cartoonish crackpots -- what progress! As the world becomes more global and complicated, the right becomes more simple-minded and intolerant, appealing to ever fewer people (thankfully). With any luck they'll eventually be inconsequential, just a bunch of nattering malcontents screaming into an empty void.

I had to chuckle when I heard Sen. Arlen Specter came out in support of Larry Craig, urging him to fight. As you see at the top of this blog, Bush sided with the pro-choice, more/less pro-gay rights Specter over the ardent, far right Toomey and now it backfires on the GOP. Frankly, it's not the first time since Specter was not exactly laying over for Gonzo; in fact, he was often refreshingly blunt in his contempt for the former AG.

As with McCain, even Bush has apparently found it difficult to navigate the looney partisan pretzel maze that currently makes up the GOP. None of the current batch of candidates are far enough to the right to win over the crazed base, and if they are they're near the bottom in the polls and likely unelectable on a national scale. The longer the party remains a willing hostage to the out-of-touch base, the further the party drifts towards obsolescence.

But of course Specter is right about Craig, no chance for a guilty verdict in court. He did nothing wrong legally. The GOP is merely showing its zero tolerance for gay behavior. Throwing more red meat to the ravenous base....