My Kingdom for a Horse

The right wing of the GOP is in quite a fix at the moment. The Council for National Policy, a secretive organization of Republican right activists (e.g., Grover Norquist, Paul Weyrich, James Dobson) and their big money allies, met this month to discuss whom to back in the GOP presidential primary. The NYT's David Kirkpatrick provides a lively account of the discussions.

Apparently, the CNP couldn't arrive at any consensus. None of the current candidates is satisfactory to them. Pathetically enough, they've even reached out to plead with South Carolina governor Mark Sanford to jump into race. (He said, "no"- and "firmly.") If they continue to sit out the race, they risk becoming completely irrelevant. But they can't agree.

I suppose, in the end, this points to how personalized politics is in the US. Here is this highly cohesive, powerful movement with access to great financial resources and a large, mobilized mass constituency. And it is rendered impotent because it can't find a credible candidate anywhere on the American political landscape? Weird.

Surely this can't last! How can the right wing of the Republican party not have an influence over presidential politics? How can they go from governing the country to being utterly sidelined? But they need a horse to ride.