Republican insiders, reports the Washington Posts plugged-in Jennifer Rubin, are worried about the quality of their slate of presidential candidates for 2012. Indeed, it has become the conventional wisdom to assert that the Republican field is a fairly weak one. (Ive also made some off-handed remarks to this effect.) But is there any evidence for this? Or is it just the sort of thing that partisans always tend to complain about at this point in the political cycle?
As Ms. Rubin notes, the 1992 Democratic field looked very weak until the emergence of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who turned out to be one of the better natural politicians of our time. Could we be looking back two years from now and wondering why we hadnt seen Tim Pawlenty or John Thune or Mitch Daniels coming, since they had turned out to be such a manifestly terrific candidate?
Of course that could happen. A lot will change between now and November, including the perceptions toward each of the Republican candidates.
The early evidence, however, suggests that this years Republican field may in fact be quite weak by the standards of recent election cycles.
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