Frum on 2016 GOP Candidates

David Frum is not optimistic that the early 2016 GOP Presidential front-runners get it on CNN.com.

As the saying goes, the first step toward recovery is to acknowledge the problem. The problem in 2012 -- as in 2008, as in the near-death experience of 2004, as in the popular vote loss of 2000, as in the loss of 1996, as in the loss of 1992 -- was the GOP's failure to offer an economic program relevant to the problems of middle-class Americans. The party's present three front-runners (Marc Rubio, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul) would not only repeat that failure, but double down on that failure. The Republican Party desperately needs renewal, its early presidential front-runners are characterized by their rejection of change.

 

At a time when voters reject generic Republicanism, Republicans themselves are rallying to two of the most generic Republicans in the party -- and a third, Paul, who diverges from generic Republicanism only by offering voters even more of what they most dislike about today's GOP. The party talks about learning from its mistakes. Thus far, the main thing the party seems to have learned from those mistakes is how to repeat them.