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Two Candidates and Seven Clowns: How Did This Happen to the GOP?
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Why is this year’s Republican presidential field so, well, weird? While each election year field is subject to its own particular constraints and quirks of history, today’s wacky Republican field is also the undeniable product of two long-brewing trends within the party. First, GOP elites have become ruthlessly efficient at winnowing the field of serious contenders. At the same time, however, the growth of the market for conservative books, television shows, and speaking engagements has made a presidential run a good brand-builder for those not seriously seeking to be president but eager to exploit that market.
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There’s been a marked increase in fringe candidates who are “running for president” for reasons other than actually attempting to obtain the Republican nomination. There have always been ideological minorities who used the process to press their views or issues, with Ron Paul and Gary Johnson just the latest version of that. But what’s relatively new, and is now apparently more attractive, is using the presidential race as a way to create or build one’s brand in the conservative marketplace—what Jonathan Chait calls “business plan” candidates. Their incentive is to stake out the most extreme positions and court controversy in order to get themselves noticed by the most partisan customers of conservative books, talk shows, and other products, instead of developing carefully constructed issue positions designed to build party-wide support; their role model is Ann Coulter, not Ronald Reagan or Bob Dole.

We’ve seen these types before in both political parties (Alan Keyes, Al Sharpton, and perhaps Rudy Giuliani), but now the GOP field is lousy with them, from Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum to Michele Bachmann to the man of the hour, Herman Cain. Of course, some of these “candidates” may think of themselves as serious contenders or, perhaps, ideological crusaders. But their behavior reveals them to be more concerned with selling books or getting a syndicated radio show.

So is this new kind of presidential field—one or two serious contenders, a lot of goofballs—here to stay? My guess is that Republicans will be dealing with this situation for many elections to come. Winnowing early among serious candidates is generally thought to be good for the party; it’s not clear why party actors or insiders would want to end that trend. And I suspect that the combination of cable television—always thirsty for presidential campaign news, even if it has to settle for fourth-tier candidates—and online campaigning and fundraising has lowered the costs of entry and increased the rewards for “business plan” candidates. http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/96413/gop-primaries-field-business
-plan-candidates from all the way back in October.

How many of the GOP's long-established "brains" are grinding their teeth at this year's candidates? I hear it almost every night, and I admit I've gotten to feel kind of sorry for them. Both parties' bosses are used to manipulating the process, but this time something's happened which made it turn out perhaps not the way they expected.