How Far Right Must GOPers Lean to Please a Crazy Base?

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/144010/how_far_right_must_gopers_lean_to_please_a_crazy_base

How Far Right Must GOPers Lean to Please a Crazy Base?

Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 7:30 AM on November 17, 2009.

Far enough to completely contradict themselves, apparently.


AN ODD WAY TO SHOW 'LEADERSHIP'.... It's almost tragic to see what a guy has to do to seek the Republican presidential nomination these days.



Pawlenty obviously knows better. We know he knows better because he has a lengthy, public record on environmental issues that bears no resemblance to his new positions. Lee Fang has a terrific timeline, which makes clear that "over the course of the last three years, Pawlenty has gone from an outspoken proponent of clean energy to a Glenn Beck pandering climate change denier." In late 2006, Pawlenty not only sought to reduce carbon emissions, he even promoted a regional cap-and-trade program. In late 2007, he declared climate change "one of the most important of our time."

That was then. Now Pawlenty opposes his own cap-and-trade plan and claims to question the basics of global warming.

Is winning a primary more important than losing one's self-respect?

Pawlenty was inclined to stay out the special election in New York's 23rd, right up until right-wing bloggers demanded he intervened. He backed the Conservative Party candidate soon after. Pawlenty engaged in grandstanding against ACORN funding that doesn't exist. He validated "death panel" nonsense. He's even dabbled in radical Tenther ideas.

Pawlenty, in other words, still hasn't sought treatment for his Romney-itis. Remember Romney? He was the relatively moderate Republican governor of a reliably "blue" state, who could present himself, with a straight face, as a pragmatic, sane policymaker. That is, until he wanted to be president, and decided to experience some kind of ideological metamorphosis -- sane, moderate pragmatism wouldn't win over the Republican base, so that persona would have to be cast aside. It was painful to watch, and ultimately ineffective.

But that hasn't stopped Pawlenty from trying the identical strategy.

The base demands fealty. Tim Pawlenty hopes to prove to them what a great "leader" he'll be by following their commands and abandoning his own record in the hopes of impressing them.

These people make Nixon look liberal.

200 years from now they'll dig up Jerry Falwell's corpse and there'll be nothing left of it except the GOP lip prints on his ass.

office he or she will be a disaster. Unfortunately the left will be frustrated right wingers will not challenge their leaders. In fact the right will circle the wagons to protect their leaders no matter how incompetent they are.