There are only two ways to qualify for the 2012 GOP nomination, says Paul Krugman: "to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless"

So what'll it be, GOP, a knuckle-dragging nitwit or a cynical fraud? Maybe with our Newt we can have both! (Today's line of the day comes from Paul Krugman, who notes that Newt "is by no means the deep thinker he imagines himself to be.")


"[T]he Republican establishment, such as it is, is essentially powerless. It sold its soul to the Tea Party, sat by silently as extremist rhetoric engulfed the GOP and figured that swing voters would eventually overlook all this to cast votes against a bad economy.

"That's still Romney's bet; yet his failure to break through suggests the right wing will not be trifled with. Republican leaders unleashed forces that may eat their party alive. And the only Republican really enjoying what's happening is Newt Gingrich."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr., in his Washington Post column today,
"A GOP reality-show race, thanks to the Tea Party"

by Ken

E.J. isn't the only columnist thinking about the GOP presidential field today. Here's the start of Paul Krugman's NYT column, "Send in the Clueless":

There are two crucial things you need to understand about the current state of American politics. First, given the still dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph. Second, the G.O.P. may nonetheless snatch defeat from the jaws of victory -- because Herman Cain was not an accident.

Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year -- and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).

And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.

So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless.

Obviously the prime example of Option 1 is Willard Inc.

Mr. Romney's strategy, in short, is to pretend that he shares the ignorance and misconceptions of the Republican base. He isn't a stupid man -- but he seems to play one on TV.

Unfortunately from his point of view, however, his acting skills leave something to be desired, and his insincerity shines through. So the base still hungers for someone who really, truly believes what every candidate for the party's nomination must pretend to believe. Yet as I said, the only way to actually believe the modern G.O.P. catechism is to be completely clueless.

E. J. Dionne Jr. offers a more nuanced view of why Willard Inc. faces so much resistance among the GOP party faithful, but it still seems to me that Paul Krugman's got it right: For someone trying to work an Option 1 strategy, it's a near-disqualifying flaw to be preposterously unbelievable.

As for Krugman's Option 2, well, it turns out that the GOP has a superabundance of contenders eager to travel this route. But as E.J. notes, the potentially fatal flaw of this strategy is built-in. At some point these candidates have to open their mouths, and not just before audiences preprimed for sociopathic gibberish.

The obvious Republican nominee was Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- obvious because his government-bashing, ideology-mongering, secessionist-flirting persona was a perfect fit for a Republican primary electorate that has shifted far to the right of Ronald Reagan.

The yearning for someone like Perry was inevitable. He combined the right views -- actually, very right views -- with experience as a chief executive that made him seem like somebody who was ready to be president. . . .

This nomination was Perry's to lose, and lose it he appears to have done. This opened the way for the relatively short-lived, if entertaining, Herman Cain show, which finally closed on Saturday.

And "now that [Perry], Cain and Bachmann have faltered, lonely conservative hearts have turned to [Newt] Gingrich."

This is odd, since Gingrich can give Romney an excellent run in any flip-flopping contest.

But Gingrich has always kept at least one foot in the camp of movement conservatism, and he talks like a movement guy. This could be enough. The question is whether he has the discipline not to say something really foolish between now and Jan. 3, the date of the Iowa caucuses. (Free advice to Newt: Stop talking about yourself in the third person as a world historical figure.)

Krugman too thinks the Newtster might actually be able to thread the GOP-base needle.

Many observers seem surprised that Mr. Gingrich's, well, colorful personal history isn't causing him more problems, but they shouldn't be. If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, conservatives often seem inclined to accept that tribute, voting for candidates who publicly espouse conservative moral principles whatever their personal behavior. Did I mention that David Vitter is still in the Senate?

And Mr. Gingrich has some advantages none of the previous challengers had. He is by no means the deep thinker he imagines himself to be, but he's a glib speaker, even when he has no idea what he's talking about. And my sense is that he's also very good at doublethink -- that even when he knows what he's saying isn't true, he manages to believe it while he's saying it. So he may not implode like his predecessors.

E.J. comes to the conclusion I've quoted at the top of this post: that the GOP establishment has itself to blame for boxing itself into this fix. And to borrow Krugman's definition of the fix, that its bedimmed and whipped-up base will only accept a cynically flagrant liar or a clueless cluck, we might want to ponder who thought this would be a shrewd strategy and why. I have my own thoughts, but I think we'll give the last word to Krugman, who brings us back to earth with the scarifying thought that one of the clucks, given the circumstances of 2012, could very well be our next president.

[G]iven the terrible economic picture and the tendency of voters to blame whoever holds the White House for bad times, even a deeply flawed G.O.P. nominee might very well win the presidency. But then what?

The Washington Post quotes an unnamed Republican adviser who compared what happened to Mr. Cain, when he suddenly found himself leading in the polls, to the proverbial tale of the dog who had better not catch that car he's chasing. "Something great and awful happened, the dog caught the car. And of course, dogs don't know how to drive cars. So he had no idea what to do with it."

The same metaphor, it seems to me, might apply to the G.O.P. pursuit of the White House next year. If the dog actually catches the car -- the actual job of running the U.S. government -- it will have no idea what to do, because the realities of government in the 21st century bear no resemblance to the mythology all ambitious Republican politicians must pretend to believe. And what will happen then?

Ah yes, what will happen then? The 2012 American Right doesn't concern itself with "the realities of government." Just look at its leadership in the two houses of Congress. Reality is such a drag! But reality is where we're all stuck. And anyone who isn't duly alarmed, well, you have to wonder if they're paying attention.

#