Time's Joe Klein feels embarrassed for the country whenever he sees the current crop of Republican presidential candidates:
I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party's banner. They are the most compelling argument I've seen against American exceptionalism. Even Tim Pawlenty, a decent governor, can't let a day go by without some bilious nonsense escaping his lizard brain. And, as Greg Sargent makes clear, Mitt Romney has wandered a long way from courage.
There are those who say, cynically, if this is the dim-witted freak show the Republicans want to present in 2012, so be it. I disagree. One of them could get elected. You never know. Mike Huckabee, the front-runner if you can believe it, might have to negotiate a trade agreement, or a defense treaty, with the Indonesian President some day. Newt might have to discuss very delicate matters of national security with the President of Pakistan. And so I plead, as an unflinching American patriot--please Mitch Daniels, please Jeb Bush, please run. I may not agree with you on most things, but I respect you.
Like a lot of pundits, Klein works from the assumption that reasonable men are capable of changing the landscape of a political party. Daniels and Bush are reasonable men, and as such -- the argument goes -- they would inch the GOP toward reasonableness. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. By disposition, Mitt Romney is a conservative technocrat; it's how he convinced a liberal state to elect him to the governorship, and it's why his signature achievement was a conservative (or at least, centrist) take on health-care reform.
If Mitt Romney is acting a fool in the Republican presidential primary, it has less to do with Mitt Romney as an "irresponsible" person, and far more to do with the insanity of the GOP base, and a nontrivial number of GOP elites. Put another way, when 71 percent of a party's most fervent supporters believe that Obama is actively destroying the country, it's no surprise that presidential candidates are willing to say ridiculous things. After all, these are the people they have to convince. The sooner you grasp that fact, the closer you are to understanding the Republican presidential primary.
