Mitt Romney's minions are pushing to get him nominated once again, apparently, with Mitt himself playing the no doubt calculated role of the reluctant bride. Apparently they think the guy who connected so well with the American people the last time will triumph in 2016, given a second chance to get people to vote in line with how the “unskewed” polls said they should.
In fact, there is good reason for the Republican Party to be turning to Mitt, though it is proof of the depth to which mainstream Republican thought has fallen from what is acceptable (when presented unvarnished) to the American people. The stable of “moderate” Republicans is virtually empty. In fact, it has been empty for a while; ;though our punditry would no doubt place Koch funded Scott Walker in a stall. It is a mark of Republican desperation that they may have nowhere else to turn but to the despised Mitt. Even before his fall, Christie was an unlikely savior; he is a thoroughly unpleasant man who is constitutionally incapable of projecting even the wooden soulessness that got Romney through the process in 2012.
But my advice to Mitt is that he stand by his protestations. Despite recent events (debt ceiling votes, etc.) the inmates are more fully in control of the asylum than they have ever been. 2016 will be their year; they will not settle for another moderate, Romney in particular. His foes in the primaries will eat him alive.
Which means we sane people have a lot to fear. It is by no means a sure thing that Hillary can beat Ted Cruz, or another of his ilk. The Democratic Party appears, at least at this point, to have accepted the inevitability of a Clinton candidacy, with all that implies: more Wall Street coddling, paying lip service and nothing more to any steps to actually reverse what truly is a road to serfdom.
In 2002 the Democrats did quite poorly in the mid terms. I would argue that was because they presented no alternative to Bush; in particular they failed to oppose his projected Iraq War, which was deeply unpopular with the Democratic base. Elections were lost not because our voters went with Republicans, but because they did not vote at all, and who could blame them. The same fate, I believe, awaits us in 2016. There is a pervasive belief in this country that something is deeply wrong. Republicans deal with these feelings by playing to resentments against the powerless. Cruz is quite capable of that. Democrats, to be successful, must appeal to resentments against the powerful while proposing ways to reduce that power. (There was this guy whose initials were “FDR”…what was that he said about “welcom[ing] their hatred”?) Clinton will run on warmed over Clintonomics. That's what got us here in the first place; people sense that and, for many, the choice between a Cruz and a Clinton will be best made by simply not voting. Cruz and his ilk, one of whom will be the candidate, may be so crazy that he will drive us to the polls holding our noses, or may lose despite reduced turnout, but we have much to fear.
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