Predictable denial or bizarre denial: Which way goeth the Republicans?

G.O.P. Post-Election Spin

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL, NYT The Republicans’ post-election spin came in two basic flavors — predictable denial and bizarre denial.

Let’s start with the predictable: the reason Americans rejected a presidential candidate who represented the right-wing of national politics was because he wasn’t genuinely right wing enough. “There’s definitely a feeling that it would be better to nominate a conservative of long-standing conviction,” said Ralph Reed, a movement conservative who hardly ever finds an electable politician crazy enough for his tastes.

Also pushing that line was Matt Kibbe, the president of Freedom Works, a “Tea Party” organization started and financed by some of the most establishment Republicans around – David Koch, Dick Armey, Jack Kemp and C. Boyden Gray, to name a few. “It is getting to point where you can’t reach back and pull another establishment Republican from the queue like we have done with Romney,” he said.

Richard Viguerie, who has been helping get establishment Republicans elected since 1980, said “Mitt Romney’s loss was the death knell of the establishment G.O.P.” He said that “the disaster of 2012 signals the beginning of the battle to take over the Republican Party” and make it even more Tea Party-like.

(More here.)