New Politics

And no less a consequence of Julius Jacobson and the Third Camp, if not exactly what they had in mind.

The battle for the Republican Presidential nomination is now exactly as the Virginia primary will be: a straight fight. On one side is Mitt Romney, the prophet and apostle of socialised medicine, who ran for the Senate from the left of Ted Kennedy. On the other is that pro-life gynaecologist and obstetrician, Ron Paul, with his opposition to bailouts, to wars, and to the erosion of constitutional checks and balances.

Either of them would be just what Obama needed in order to compel him to be true to himself and break once and for all with the failures and divisions of the Clinton years, finally inaugurating a newer and better age in his party’s history. But the concerns raised by Paul are more immediately pressing. Paul must be the nominee. There is no Democratic contest, so register as Republicans and make it happen. Everyone. Just do it.

To whingeing Dubya nostalgists who might object, the nomination of Paul, and the utter transformation of the GOP entailed by that nomination, would be the beautiful revenge of those whose party was stolen by those NYC Trotskyists who went on to stage the Great Coup of 2000 behind their ridiculous Manchurian Candidate. The likes of Robert Kagan and John Bolton have since moved on to Gingrich. Oh, well. Never mind.