One question, Richard Cohen: Did Republicans really WANT a better candidate than the 2012 field offered them?

Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker -- now that's talent?

"None of these candidates [i.e., the 2012 Republican presidential field] were remotely qualified for the highest office in the land. Arguably, Romney was the exception -- and that’s the whole point. He won just by showing up."

-- Richard Cohen, in his WaPo column today,
"The Republican brain drain"

by Ken

Before we proceed with today's lesson from Brother Richard Cohen, a couple of caveats:

* About Richard Cohen himself, it's the usual: Although he normally seems to me a Village hack, he hasn't lost all his marbles, and every now and then he can size up a situation like a serious pundit.

* For the purposes of this enterprise we're going to have to accept that latterday Republican politicos like Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole constitute "talent." For many of us this is quite a considerable stretch, but when you see who these skells are lined up against, I think you'll see the point.

This is the start of Richard Cohen's Washington Post column today, "The Republican brain drain":

In 1980 Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination. He beat a future president, George H.W. Bush; two future Senate majority leaders, Howard Baker and Bob Dole; and two lesser-known congressmen. This year Mitt Romney won the GOP nomination. He beat a radio host, a disgraced former House speaker, a defeated Senate candidate, a former appointee of the Obama administration, a tongue-tied Texas governor, a prevaricating religious zealot who happens to serve in the House of Representatives and a cranky libertarian doctor. Where did all the talent go?

Until the Republican Party can answer this question, it makes no sense to continue to carp about Mitt Romney and the startlingly incompetent presidential campaign he’s running. His faults as a politician are manifest. He is robotic, unknowable (his own wife asserted at the national convention that “he made me laugh” and then failed to cite a single humorous moment), ideologically incoherent and severely out of touch with the average American. He is his party’s nominee because, like the one-eyed man in the valley of the blind, he is just the best of the worst.

Okay, so maybe this isn't the most blinding insight you've ever read. But how often do you see it in an Authentic Village Values WaPo column, which is to say one written by someone not named E. J. Dionne Jr., Gene Robinson, or Harold Meyerson? (Those can all be dismissed relatively effortlessly with a wave of the hand and a bemused "Oh, that E.J./Gene/Harold [fill in the appropriate dreamer].")

The list of Republicans who looked at Iowa’s daunting demographics and did not run is more distinguished than those who did. At one time or another, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain (who was forced to drop out) were front-runners. Can you think of any two people less qualified for the presidency? How about Ron Paul, another front-runner, or Mad Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry, the cement-mouthed governor who would eliminate three Cabinet offices, if only he could remember them? How about Rick Santorum, a fun guy, who actually beat Romney in Iowa, or Jon Huntsman, a decent man with shallow political experience — and, it seemed, aptitude?

None of these candidates were remotely qualified for the highest office in the land. Arguably, Romney was the exception — and that’s the whole point. He won just by showing up. He beat a bunch of nobodies. This is how the GOP wound up with such a weak candidate, one who espouses extreme positions he does not for a moment believe.

I know it's easy, but I can still be had with a fresh round of indiscreet bashing of the 2012 GOP presidential "field."

The list of Republicans who looked at Iowa’s daunting demographics and did not run is more distinguished than those who did. At one time or another, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain (who was forced to drop out) were front-runners. Can you think of any two people less qualified for the presidency? How about Ron Paul, another front-runner, or Mad Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry, the cement-mouthed governor who would eliminate three Cabinet offices, if only he could remember them? How about Rick Santorum, a fun guy, who actually beat Romney in Iowa, or Jon Huntsman, a decent man with shallow political experience — and, it seemed, aptitude

"Open the window and listen," says our Richard.

You will hear the moans and groans of Republican officials and their trained pundits. But where were these people when their field of oddballs was being assembled? Why were they so silent when Hispanics and women were being told to shove it and the long-dead Darwin was being debated? More to the point, maybe, how come they put up with a primary and caucus system — Iowa first, New Hampshire second — that seemingly was designed by a sly Democrat? The answer is that they do not have the courage nor the intellectual integrity to stand up to the know-nothing (dominant) wing of the Republican Party. They have designed a system where, politically speaking, the lowest common denominator wins. We are all the poorer for it.

At the heart of the toxic presidential-choosing system, says our Richard, setting up my favorite line, "is the series of incredibly damaging primaries and caucuses that, in the crucial early stages, produce a candidate who could sweep Bavaria." (Presumably all readers know that Bavaria is known for being the ultraconservative heartland of Germany.)

He recalls the extent of the pandering ("across the board") that Willard Inc. submitted to in Iowa.

A GOP candidate has to oppose same-sex marriage, deny global warming and insist — against all evidence — that local control of education is the best. The only way around these positions is to skip the Iowa caucuses entirely. It is no place for a moderate. It is, really, no place for a thinking person.

Okay, now here's where we have to take a relatively dispassionate view of the likes of Reagan and Bush Sr. and Baker and Dole. Do you see what I mean about the caliber of the lineup against which these skells are lined up?

Contrast the candidates of yore with the collection that took the field this year. The Republican Party has had a brain drain so that now its highest intellectual achievement is — like an infant in the Terrible 2s— simply to say no to everything, especially taxes. To paraphrase Marx, rise up, GOP moderates. You have nothing to lose . . . but losing.

Just one thing, Richard. These "GOP moderates" of whom you speak. Where are they again? Because if they existed in any appreciable number, wouldn't you think that a candidate would have found his/her way into the field to give them someone to rally 'round?

#