Slate - "Have Republicans Lost Their Mind?"

[TomCADem]

This article may explain why Roger Ailes is desparately trying to promote a boring Republican presidential candidate after pushing outward extremists during the midterms. So, it looks like 2012 will be the year of the Responsible Retread endorsed by Roger Ailes.

http://www.slate.com/id/2295128/

At a press conference last week, someone asked Chris Christie for his views on evolution vs. creationism. "That's none of your business," the New Jersey governor barked in response.

This minor incident, which barely rated as news for a few political blogs, offers a glimpse of Christie's personality, which seems increasingly grumpy and snappish. But it says even more about the current state of the national Republican Party, where magical thinking trumps rationality, and even to acknowledge basic realities about the world we live in runs the risk of damaging one's political future.

Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.

Moments like this point to a growing asymmetry in our politics. One party, the Democrats, suffers from the usual range of institutional blind spots, historical foibles, and constituency-driven evasions. The other, the Republicans, has moved to a mental Shangri-La, where unwanted problems (climate change, the need to pay the costs of running the government) can be wished away, prejudice trumps fact (Obama might just be Kenyan-born or a Muslim), expertise is evidence of error, and reality itself comes to be regarded as some kind of elitist plot.

[Warpy]

1. Does anybody really have to ask that question?

They're duplicating exactly what happened to the Federalist Party when that party decided to pursue the agenda of a few very rich men to the detriment of the country as a whole.

[aquart]

I know I should know about the Federalist Party.

But all I know is the name.

[aquart]

3. I know I should know about the Federalist Party.

But all I know is the name.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Have they had an actual mind....since we elected a Black President?

I say hell to the naw!

[AndyTiedye]

5. Mind Completely Blown

[AndyTiedye]

4. Most Certainly

[murielm99]

6. There is another possibility.

Maybe he was waiting for the latest talking point. There might be a way to answer that question that is acceptable to the base. He just hasn't been informed yet.

[SmileyRose]

7. NO. The Republicans have not lost their mind.

I don't think the ones currently living ever had it.