Candidats républicains: le point

Survol des candidats toujours actifs au sein des républicains. Après le flop de Trump, l'annonce du retrait de Mike Huckabee et les déclarations maladroites de Gingrich, il est important de faire le point. Toujours aussi à droite le GOP?

"Not only did Romney and Gingrich blur the lines between the GOP and Barack Obama, they also sharpened the distinctions between themselves and the rest of the GOP field.

In this, they were playing catch-up with Mitch Daniels, Indiana's extremely effective governor and putative front-runner among conservative policy wonks, the Bush family, and insomniacs. Daniels yanked away collective-bargaining rights for public workers years ago, without the Sturm und Drang that accompanied Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's more tepid reforms. Just this month, Daniels successfully withdrew all state funding of Planned Parenthood, a holy grail for social conservatives.

Daniels, however, also steadfastly refuses to sign anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's pledge to never raise taxes. He famously called for a "truce" on social issues, which social conservatives translate as "surrender" to the Left since they rightly believe that the Left is the aggressor in the culture war. And last week he playfully suggested that he might tap former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as his running mate. Floating a pro-choice veep is not the way to reassure social conservatives.

For those paying attention, these should be fascinating developments given the perennial claims that the GOP base is too right-wing, extremist, and closed-minded to tolerate such philosophical diversity. (And with the exception of Gingrich and Paul, there are no Southerner candidates in a party allegedly captured by the South.)

Does all this mean that the GOP has re-embraced its Nelson Rockefeller roots? Of course not.

But it does hint that this year's primary season won't involve a replay of the dreadful 2008 debates in which the candidates auditioned to play the part of Ronald Reagan in the school play.

It also suggests that the front-runners - a group that includes former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty - might be ahead of the rank-and-file of the GOP."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/05/18/a_sharper_gop_field_109906.html