Ditto to Karl Rove (This Time)

Karl Rove and I are seeing eye-to-eye, and that bothers me. For years I had regarded him as one of the chief culprits responsible for George W. Bush's shift to an ideological, right-wing presidency after initially running in 2000 as a moderate who could unite the country behind him (as he successfully had done with Texas as its governor). It was Bush's stubbornness during the initial months of 2001 in refusing to work with the Democrats in Congress that led me to switch my party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. So Rove is not exactly on my list of most-admired.

But Karl Rove has lately been quite vocal in his denunciation of new presidential hopeful Donald Trump, even calling him a "joke candidate". Why? Because Trump, who could have run strongly on his credentials as a very successful businessman qualified to take on the nation's economic problems as president, instead decided to go off the deep end and focus on Obama's birthplace, siding with the fringe "birther" movement that claims the current president to be illegally in office because he was supposedly born abroad and not in Hawaii. I initially had welcomed Trump's entry into the race until he showed that, beyond his business acumen, he was nuttier than a fruitcake.

But even setting aside the Trump nonsense, I find myself agreeing somewhat with Karl Rove, who wants there to be a field of stronger GOP candidates than there is right now. When November 2012 comes around, I want to have a choice between two candidates, either of whom I feel confident to be qualified to take over the reins of power in 2013. The last thing I want is for some simplistic demagogue to make it into office by repeating Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh's talking points. But except for Mitt Romney (who at least has a record in office of being reasonable, although he now is understandably trying to ingratiate himself with the party's right wing), I see no one who doesn't fit this description.

I don't think that Mr. Rove wants the Republicans to nominate political bomb-throwers like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, or Michelle Bachmann for the simple reason that their nomination would almost automatically guarantee Obama a second term. Rove wants the GOP to unite early in the campaign around a strong candidate who can win over independent and moderate voters, something crucial for their election in 2012. Instead, the Republicans may end up crippled with extremist teabaggers rejecting any moderation during the primary season and nominating a nutcase to run against Obama in the general election. Neither Rove nor I want this to happen.