...about a possible run for president by South Dakota Senator John Thune in 2012. This tells me a couple of things. First, the GOP is still frantically searching for an alternative to Sarah Palin. Neither Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Rick Santorum, or anyone else I've forgotten has generated much interest.
Second, the health care reform bill has probably hurt Mitt Romney more with party insiders than casual observers know. (It couldn't have helped recently when President Obama said, "This is similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts." Ouch! In the famous words of Jed Clampett, "Quit helpin' me, boy.")
And to make matters even worse, Romney has been practically twisting himself into a pretzel trying to claim that his plan is not only different from the president's, but successful as well (the Republican base would probably beg to differ on both counts). And this highlights what I think could be Romney's biggest problem. Never mind that he's a dreadful campaigner and a Mormon stuck in a less and less tolerant Evangelical Christian party. Romney's biggest deficit is his lack of authenticity, something voters today value highly. And that's why I'm becoming more and more persuaded (despite what I've said previously about Newt Gingrich) that Sarah Palin may be the person to beat for the GOP nomination in 2012. If nothing else, she has authenticity.
But the Republican pooh-bahs will continue to thrash about desperately for a candidate like Thune who can appeal to both the party's base and the establishment--no small accomplishment. They're not stupid. They know if Palin gets the nomination it will be, to quote George W. Bush on John McCain's 2008 campaign, a "five spiral crash."
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