This Twitter exchange starts as a joke, but then Ross Douthat and Matt Yglesias get -- for want of a better word -- serious:
Who will be the first to write the "Republicans Should Have Gone With Santorum" column? #slatepitches #firstthingspitches
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 26, 2012
@mattyglesias Thing is, you didn't even have to "go apostate." If tone is right, base would tolerate policy creativity on a lot of fronts.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 26, 2012
So this is the new argument for why the Republican presidential campaign looks like it was scripted by Andrew Breitbart's corpse? Because Romney isn't purist enough? If he'd been more purist, he could have been less purist as a candidate? So ... um ... maybe if the GOP had run a Michele Bachmann/Allen West ticket, there'd be calls for tax increases on the rich and comprehensive immigration reform, because they're so trusted by the crazy base that they'd inevitably feel really comfortable deviating from conservative correctness?
That's utterly ridiculous. Early in Rick Perry's campaign, it was believed that he was the real wingnut deal: Christianist, anti-government, anti-tax ... and yet he was attacked for offering an in-state tuition deal to undocumented immigrants, and that was the beginning of the end. Newt Gingrich lost credibility with the base for months after he opposed the Ryan budget's approach to Medicare, and was forced to recant. Rick Santorum got slammed for defending his vote in favor of Saint George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law. ("Sometimes you take one for the team"? No, you don't -- you stay purer-than-thou or the base hates you.)
Elite pundits, please: There is no room for Republicans to maneuver. They must mollify the crazy base or suffer the consequences. The crazy base is going to demand absolute fealty as long as its members are alive and well and consuming Fox News and talk radio. No Republican will dare cross the base until the base withers away, and that won't be for quite a while.
