With the growing likelihood, at least before a series of debates in a six week period in September and October that will test legitimacy, that Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann might win the GOP nomination for President, it must be said that there are numerous virtues if such an eventuality actually occurs!
The virtues are as follows:
1. The odds of such a far RIght WIng candidate winning the national election is extremely low, as America is a centrist nation, and will reject such craziness!
2. The Republican Party would be cleansed by the defeat of a Perry or Bachmann, and come back to its senses, moving to the center of the political spectrum, and by so doing, would have a good chance to win the White House in 2016, as it is not uncommon to have parties switch power in the Presidency every eight to twelve years!
3. The impact of the Tea Party Movement would be dramatically lessened, if not destroyed, by a massive defeat!
4. The Influence of the Christian Right evangelicals would be eliminated as a major factor in future Republican Presidential battles if the candidate loses in a disastrous way!
5. The urban-rural split within the country could be resolved by the triumph of the urban areas, where most of the people live–80 percent in 28 states with only 40 percent of the land area, as compared to 20 percent in 22 states with 60 percent of the land area!
6. Centrists and Independents would return to the Democratic Party in large numbers with an extreme right wing Republican such as Perry or Bachmann!
7. The chances of a strongly Democratic Congress in both houses would increase, as the “coat tail” effect of an Obama landslide would help to bring in Democrats, even in some Republican or swing districts, allowing the accomplishment of more of the President’s agenda, and making the GOP control of the House of Representatives a bad memory!
This election could be similar to the massive defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964, changing the political climate for nearly a generation, bringing to power a moderate Republican, Richard Nixon, as compared to Goldwater.
Of course, such a defeat does not mean the complete end of the Right Wing forces in the GOP, but it would set them back for a period of at least 12-16 years as occurred from 1964-1980. And even Ronald Reagan ended up smoothing the rough edges of the Goldwater ideology when he was President of the United States in the 1980s!
The purging, the purification of the Republican Party, from its extremist roots is necessary to make the party a true, legitimate alternative for America in the 21st century! The American people will not allow such reckless candidates, as Perry or Bachmann would be, to win the White House, as at least the vast majority of them, believe in American “exceptionalism”, a different kind that will not allow anyone in the White House who represents a threat to the whole 20th century democratizing and reforms, and wishes to promote theocracy in America! Even Barry Goldwater did not wish to do that, and in fact, opposed religious influence to dictate to the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower!