Do Democrats Really Think They Pick the GOP Nominee?

We’ve seen this movie before. Liberal Joe Klein has just identified Jeb Bush as his candidate to win the Republican nomination, writing in TIME:

Bush. . . is a political conservative with a moderate disposition. And after giving his speeches a close read, I find Bush’s disposition far more important than his position on any given issue. In fact, it’s a breath of fresh air. . . There is none of John McCain’s chesty bellicosity. . . He is worried about middle-class economic stagnation, about the inability of the working poor to rise–-his PAC is called Right to Rise.

We now know who Democrats want to beat for president in 2016, and it’s no surprise his last name is Bush. In 2000, the liberal media was lionizing John McCain--the man Klein slams by name now--as holding the “the same basic view of the government” as Democrat Bill Clinton.  Klein was part of the liberal press pack, calling McCain “one of the most honorable people I know,” while attacking George W. Bush for his “inability to defend his own positions.”

Of course after McCain won the Republican nomination in 2008, he was no longer the Democrats’ darling.  Klein, for example, at the time wrote, “McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy.”

In the 2000 election, Democrats wanted McCain over George Bush.  But Bush instead won the primary and the general, in the process beating their man, Al Gore. Now Democrats want Jeb Bush over the rest of the GOP field, so that in 2016 a different Clinton can beat a different Bush.

It would be crazy for Republicans to allow liberals such as Klein, a proven lair himself, to pick the GOP nominee.