Monday, August 22, 2011

Is the Republican Party ready for some sanity?

Yesterday I tried to make the case that we should be hoping for a return to sanity in the Republican Party. To do so in the race for the 2012 nomination process seemed to mean that the only hope would rest with Jon Huntsman. But when he first entered the race, it looked like he too would be pandering to the lunatics. So much for sanity!

But then lately, it looks like perhaps he's going to give sanity a go and check out whether or not there's enough of it left in the Republican ranks to challenge the lunacy (either that, or as some have suggested, perhaps he's setting himself up for 2016 and hoping lunacy has run its course by then).

Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor who has been stuck in the second tier of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, took an aggressive new tone during a televised interview on Sunday, saying that recent remarks from two of his major rivals were “extreme” and “unrealistic.”...

He warned against the Republican Party becoming what he called “the anti-science party,” which he said would create “a huge problem” in 2012. In an appearance on the ABC News program “This Week,” Mr. Huntsman added, “I think when you find yourself at an extreme end of the Republican Party, you make yourself unelectable.”...

The former governor, who served as ambassador to China under President Obama before quitting that post this year to pursue the presidency, has tried to stake out a middle ground in a contest where the loudest voices have come from what he referred to on Sunday as “the fringes.”

It will be interesting to see how Republican donors and primary voters respond to a bit of sanity. Are they ready for it? I'd guess not. But then, a lot can happen in the next 12 months leading up to the Republican nomination. We'll see.

4 comments:

  1. Perhaps he's aiming to splinter the pseudo-progressive "base" who want to "punish" President Obama. After all, he hasn't "evolved already." Their constant caterwauling shows they have learned nothing from the 2010 election debacle and their fostering of it. I never thought the uncompromising chorus--for all their progressive mouthings--really cared about putting poor folks at risk. Perhaps he wants to peel away the Republicans for Obama. The Lady Rothschild Dems and some PUMAS can be bought. Why vote for Obama, Republican lite, when you can get the real lite Republican. Maybe backstabbers share a language across ideology and beyond issues. Are these notions farfetched?

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  2. If only we could get the anti-science crowd to walk the walk: Don't believe in evolution? No more pharmaceuticals for you. Don't believe in non-Newtonian physics? Drop the cell phones and start using smoke signals. Think the Earth is just a few thousand years old? Then you can't power your vehicles with dead dinosaur juice.

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  3. Unfortunately for Huntsman, a lot of the "sane" Republican voters may have already given up and become Democrats. I've talked to a few myself when registering voters who came to our table to ask how to change their affiliation.

    Imo, the Repugnant train has already derailed, is falling off the trestle bridge and plunging into the rapids.

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  4. The only sane man is insane, by concensus. Sanity can only be judged by a standard mentality.

    It is Huntsman who is insane. As such, he cannot win the primaries.

    I am very liberal, but I would almost vote for him.

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