Republicans are being held hostage by their base

By Harold Meyerson,
WashPost
Published: April 26

Republicans have a problem. Their base is killing them.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s announcement Monday that he will not seek the presidency is just the latest sign that politically sentient Republicans fear their party’s voters have moved so deeply into la-la land that winning their support in next year’s primaries could render their nominee unelectable in November. “Friends of Barbour,” reports The Post’s Dan Balz, “said that he had come to the conclusion that Republicans can win only if they are totally focused on serious issues and not distracted by some side issues, such as Obama’s birthplace, that have arisen in the early going.”

But Republicans are massively distracted by birtherism. A New York Times-CBS News poll last week showed that while 57 percent of Americans believe that President Obama was born in the United States, against 25 percent who didn’t, just 33 percent of Republicans believed him American-born, while 45 percent did not. The Republican level of birtherism was effectively identical to that of self-identified Tea Party supporters, 34 percent of whom thought Obama was U.S.-born, while 45 percent did not.

(More here.)