The Failure of the Fairfax Primary

Part of the ongoing death of the GOP Establishment is the failure of the 'Fairfax Primary'.  'Fairfax Primary' was short hand for the Establishment having an Inside the Beltway voice is anointing who were 'serious' candidates for President.  The conservative media, think tanks and the usual DC hangers on would get favorable media for their anointed ones and disparage the rest.  The unanointed would be labeled unelectable and the combined media chatter would destroy their campaigns.

With the Ames Straw poll coming next week it seems to be a good time to review their results.  They anointed 3.5 candidates: Romney, Huntsman, Pawlenty and Gingrich.  Romney did not need them to anoint him.  He has been running since 2007 and was the provisional front runner by the usual GOP 'next in line' theory.  So far he remains a weak provisional front runner on a combination of name recognition and the support of the country club vote [upper income voters who care mostly about economic issues and governance].  Huntsman's campaign is sinking without a trace.  His campaign has even managed to misspell his name twice.  The latest is that more major figures are jumping ship as it becomes clear he is not willing to continue to self-finance a race that is going nowhere.  Pawlenty is at the do or die point with Ames.  He had an authentic story to tell [blue collar man from hard scrabble background makes good and becomes a 'Sam's Club Republican'].  He has trashed that authenticity trying to refashion himself as a Tea Party pseudo-Reagan clone.  Absent selling biography and a general nice guy feel he has no ecological niche to fill.  If he can finish in the top three in Ames he may linger on till Iowa next winter, but his campaign is reduced to trying to keep breathing long enough for Obamacare to kill Romney [which so far it isn't - Romney's core voters have forgiven him for that sin as they have essentially forgiven everything else he did to win Massachusetts elections].  Newt was always an unlikely Fairfax choice.  My personal guess is they felt compelled to take him seriously both from history [Gingrich Revolution of 94] and because Newt is an ideas man as opposed to an ideologue.  Didn't matter - once you get past name recognition the Gingrich campaign has gone nowhere.  Beyond refreshing his brand for commercial ventures his 'campaign' seems to be a mostly un-campaign with staff leaving, fund raising lagging and few actual campaign events in battle ground states.

In reverse none of the serious [double diget in the polls] candidates needed the Fairfax seal of approval.  Bachmann has become the Tea Party candidate.  She may be self-selected but that never stopped the lady before.  Paul has his cult following and will over-perform in straw polls where his groupies can pack the audience.  Perry has [for the moment] emerged as the stalking horse for everyone who look at the choice of Romney or Bachmann and asks for a third choice.  He's Tea Party enough.  He's Establishment enough [Trans-Texas Corridor].  He's actually been the governor of a major state [the last President from the House was Ford; the last President elected from the House was Garfield].  Whether his candidacy can survive the media spotlight once he announces remains to be seen. 

Yet the crazy part is that while the Fairfax Establishment would never have chosen Perry, he has in a real sense become their 'great white hope'.  Their nightmare is a contest of Romney v Bachmann with Paul as the least un-serious #3.  Establishment v Populist v Doctrinaire Libertarian.  If a Democrat were devising a formula to split the GOP into its components and possibly produce all three running for President in November this would be the formula.  Romney uses money and victories in blue states that will never vote GOP in November to beat the other two.  They pronounce him a RINO and run as two varieties of True Quill.  We live in interesting times.