Earlier this month, before the Donald Trump media tour and shortly after the first Republican presidential debate slated for May was cancelled due to a lack of official candidates, Ross Douthat, the resident conservative at The New York Times weighed in about the GOP field.
Here’s part of what Douthat said in his column:
“The Party of Lincoln looks increasingly like a party of Mario Cuomos. Its biggest names and brightest lights are mainly competing to offer excuses for why they won’t be running in 2012.
“Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, for instance, is convinced that he could capture the White House … but he’s apparently too modest to vindicate his boast: “I’ve got to believe I’m ready to be president, and I don’t.”
“Mike Huckabee, likewise, will tell anyone who’ll listen that he would be the favorite in the primaries and the strongest choice to face Obama. But he’ll also say that the campaign trail is exhausting, the debates are a waste of time, he doesn’t like to fund-raise …
“Then there’s Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, who came to Washington in February and delivered the kind of speech that conservative campaigns are built on: a dense and fluent argument for limited government, rooted in the premise that America’s fiscal liabilities constitute a ‘survival-level threat.’ Alas, somebody else may have to ensure the survival of the republic, since Daniels has spent the (past) month backpedaling from the idea of a presidential run.
“Paul Ryan, the House Republicans’ rising star, shares Daniels’s view that the United States faces a pivotal moment in 2012 … Naturally, he’s already ruled out a run for president. So have lesser lights like Senator John Thune of South Dakota and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana. So has the Republican politician with the most famous name and strongest executive record: former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida.
“None of this means that the Republican ballot will be empty come January. We know Mitt Romney is running: in fact, he never really stopped. We know Newt Gingrich is kind-sorta-definitely running. (former Minnesotate governor Tim Pawlenty) is in, and Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi may join the field as well. There’s a long list of dark horses, potential spoilers and vanity candidates — Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman, John Bolton and Ron (or Rand!) Paul, Rick Santorum and Donald Trump. And of course there’s Sarah Palin, who will presumably keep the media playing “will she or won’t she?” all the way to Iowa.
“But if Romney is the front-runner and Pawlenty the freshest face, the Republican Party will have let both its own constituents and the country down.
“Every presidential election matters, but Daniels and Ryan are right to see the 2012 campaign as a potential hinge moment in American domestic politics.
“…But the right’s opportunity could easily be lost. The public loves to vote for leaner government and then recoil from the reality. Already there’s a backlash against conservative governors in states like Wisconsin and Ohio who are perceived to be cutting too much too fast. When Ryan and his colleagues release(d) …an ambitious plan for entitlement reform …(they put) a bull’s-eye on their party’s back.
“Fifteen years ago, in the wake of the 1994 Republican revolution, conservatives were in a similar position — fresh from a midterm victory but politically overextended, struggling to persuade a wary public to embrace limited government in practice as well as theory.
“Out of a mediocre primary field, they ended up with Bob Dole as their standard-bearer. Their cause did not soon recover.”
