The GOP's Circular Firing Squad

Ken Carroll's Eleventh Rule of Politics: "If you’re an incumbent, the election will nearly always be about you. If you are a challenger to an incumbent and the election is about you, then you are nearly always in trouble.”

The Republican Party and its faithful followers have formed a circular firing squad around its potential presidential nominees and are rapidly loading and firing. Some on the outskirts of the group, apparently fearing that the massacre will be over before they can make their way to the front, are calling for more candidates to step forward.

It's Madame Defarge knitting a thong as heads roll into baskets in this modern tale of blood running in the streets and factionalized hatreds. The tablet upon which Reagan's Eleventh Commandment was carved lies broken and crumbling under the ox carts of the short-sighted supporters who desire nothing more than the ascendancy of their particular candidate.
Allegedly conservative columnist George F. Will seems to have a desire to run through the entire
Republican field, bashing campaigns and character with a nearly youthful 

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zeal often missing in action against liberals. With two notable exceptions, Will doesn't like any of the GOP field. The problem for Will is that neither of those candidates is likely to be the GOP nominee at this point.
So, if Will's two favored candidates don't receive the nomination, what will Will do? He can't recall his words, scattered into the blogosphere, stored on countless servers and forever available to backers of the current administration to be used against the eventual GOP nominee. I doubt Will does anything to rectify the impression given by his judgments.
This is the real problem for the GOP: This election is rapidly becoming about the GOP horserace and the GOP candidates. This is what Barack Obama needs to win.
Obama's record is atrocious. His plan to radically transform our country has received the fate it deserved and unfortunately that fate has plunged our economy into a funk that will continue even after the West Wing's resident socialist is no longer in office.
Obama has been a failure on the economic and the foreign policy front. He needs the Republican candidates to attack each other. He needs the Republican Party base to be divided and off topic if he has a chance to win. There is no need to make it easy for him.
I have not yet chosen a candidate. There are some I do not particularly like, about whom I would be very concerned if they were to be elected. But none of them trouble me as much as a second Obama term.
So, let us remember who the real opponent is in the upcoming election. That opponent does not have an R after the name. Let's get back to basics, target the man who is ruining this country and elect the best Republican.

by Ken Carroll