Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game?

by Stuart Shapiro

OK, it’s getting silly.  Rep Bachmann slips up on the U.S diplomatic relations with Iran.  Rick Perry gets the voting age wrong.  Herman Cain, never mind, you get the point.  Now, some of these you can write off to the fact that talking publicly continuously is hard.  Some maybe you blame on the fact that everything a candidate says is caught on video and goes worldwide in minutes.  But the sheer volume of “gaffes” mostly highlights that this is an exceptionally weak GOP field.  As Nate Silver tweeted,

Short memo to Christie, Palin, Daniels, Ryan, Thune, Huckabee, Barbour, Pawlenty, Jindal, Rubio and DeMint: oops.

Anyone of those candidates would (except Palin and DeMint) would be a stronger candidate in a general election than anyone in the field currently except Huntsman and maybe Romney.  As I posted on Monday, I think President Obama has done a very good job.  But more crucial to his re-election efforts is that he is extremely lucky to have the rivals he does.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.