While some Republicans may hope for a hardcore conservative presidential nominee to emerge from next year’s primaries, it’s not going to happen, says MSNBC commentator and former Florida GOP congressman Joe Scarborough.
“Always remember one simple rule: crazy never wins,” he writes on
Politico.
“Despite the crop of nutty right-wing candidates that sprout up in GOP presidential fields every four years, . . . despite the cries from right-wing radio hosts predicting the rise of Ronald Reagan’s ghost and the nomination of an unelectable candidate, in the end this political chatter always proves to be sound and fury signifying nothing.”
On the subject of former President Reagan, he wasn’t as conservative as some on the right make him out to be, Scarborough argues. “Reagan ignored the most extreme elements in his party and governed from the center when compromise was required,” he writes.
“That pragmatic streak required the conservative movement’s founder to come to the Gipper’s defense more than once. William F. Buckley praised Reagan’s pragmatism in a 1967 National Review column that mocked right-wing critics by facetiously asking whether the California governor should ‘padlock the state treasury and give speeches on the Liberty Amendment.’ ”
Scarborough cites his father, who for years backed Republican presidential candidates who won the nomination. “Guys like my dad do not gamble on candidates such as Michele Bachmann or Newt Gingrich,” Scarborough writes.
“Guys like my dad tune out politicians who compare opponents to Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler...That’s why crazy never wins. It never even comes close.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.