Will Republicans Face Turmoil in 2016?

Click image to enlarge

As noted before, a civil war continues within the Republican Party at both the national and state level.  In every instance on one side stand what's left of the once plentiful sane Republicans who made smaller efficient government and fiscal conservatism on the other side are the Christofascists and white supremacists (who are largely one and the same).  The later are a Frankenstein monster that was cynically created when the so-called GOP establishment welcomed the insane, the openly racist and the religious fanatic crowd into the party for short term advantage.  This element now comprises a metastasizing cancer which over the long term will hopefully be the death of the GOP as demographic change continues and the angry white Christofacists literally die off and become a permanent minority in America.  Personally, that day cannot come soon enough to satisfy me.  In the shorter term - e.g., in 2016 - this civil war will rage unabated and may well roil the chances of the GOP finding a presidential candidate who is electable in the general election.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the likely coming turmoil.  Here are article excerpts:

As Republicans look ahead to the 2016 presidential race, they are hoping to avoid the kind of chaotic and protracted nominating battle that dismayed party elders and damaged the eventual candidacy of Mitt Romney.  That, however, could be a hard thing to prevent.

The party is divided and in turmoil, with a civil war raging between its establishment and insurgent factions. For the first time in memory, there is no obvious early favorite — no candidate with wide appeal who has run before, no incumbent president or vice president, no clear establishment pick.

Meanwhile, an enormous number of potential contenders are looking at the race, including, perhaps, a return of virtually everyone who ran in 2012. Come this time next year, 15 or more of them could be traveling the early primary states, jockeying for attention and money.

The Republican National Committee is doing its best to prevent a replay of the spectacle of 2012, which saw one candidate after another pop up as a mortal threat to the front-runner. Late last month, the RNC began putting into place rules that would shorten the primary season and make it begin later.

But two years out from the Iowa caucuses, the Democrats are the ones who are closing ranks. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll shows presumed contender Hillary Rodham Clinton holding the support of 73 percent of those likely to vote Democratic. In the poll’s 30-year history, no one has ever had such a strong grip on the party at this early point.

On the Republican side, things are so wide open that even 2012 nominee Romney is getting another look, although the former Massachusetts governor recently told the New York Times: “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.”

Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), is expected to stay in the House in the coming years, with the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee or the speaker’s gavel on the horizon. But he told CNN, “I’m not closing my options.”

Nor, it seems, is anyone else.   “It’s certainly something I’m looking at very seriously,” said real estate developer and reality-TV star Donald Trump.

Republicans are hoping to bring order out of chaos with a new set of rules to govern the nominating process.  The new rules — if enforced — would tighten the primary season and delay its launch until February. (The 2012 Iowa caucuses took place in mid-January.)

The RNC would prohibit “beauty contests” such as Iowa’s straw poll, which saps campaign resources and provides a jolt of temporary buzz but usually proves to be meaningless in picking the ultimate nominee. The party also hopes to sharply limit the number of debates and expects to move its convention up to late June or early July, which would give its nominee a jump on the general-election season.

Yet there is always the possibility that an ill-timed breakout moment could catapult one of the less-viable candidates to the nomination, said Republican consultant Mike Murphy, who mentioned Cruz as a potential “poison pill” in a general election.

[A]ny real solution to the party’s problems lies in the candidates, many senior Republicans argue.
“I thought we had a weak field in 2012,” said Barbour, who is one of the most influential voices in the GOP establishment. He predicted that 2016 will see “a large field, like in 2012, but a much higher-quality field.”

That anyone like Michelle Bachmann could be a serious candidate in 2012 shows just how low the GOP has fallen and how utterly insane much of the GOP base has become.  I predict that the Christofascists and their repackaged Tea Party mirror image will cause nothing but problems in the run up to 2016.  And the GOP establishment will have no one to blame but themselves. These lunatics should NEVER have been voted onto local city and county committees.  Never, ever!