George Will tells us who the 'plausible' candidates are

One of the most interesting undertones of the 2012 Republican Presidential primary will be how the Republican establishment pushes back on the Tea Party and retakes control of their party. Tea Party enthusiasm was a big reason Republicans took back the House in 2010. But it's clear that the yokels touting Gadsden flags and protesting getting free healthcare are not the people Republican elites want picking their presidential candidate. As so it's not surprising when you see George Will, one of the most DC-centric establishment conservatives, using his column inches in the Washington Post to attack recent Birther-like statements by Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich as out of bounds. Will makes a reasonable case that this sort of discourse has no place in the Republican primary. But given that Birtherism is a reliable indicator of Republican partisanship, Will is really trying to shut out much of the Tea Party from the selection process and deny them a candidate who speaks their language.

Will goes on to write about who he thinks legitimate candidates are:

Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon - Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah governor and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.

So the Republican winnowing process is far advanced. But the nominee may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.

Again, Will is a reliable stand in for the DC establishment. Note that his list of "plausible" candidates includes three people - Daniels, Barbour and Huntsman - who have gained no traction in any poll of any state or political body. They are candidates who are, as far as anyone can tell, only considered viable within the Beltway and have no meaningful support within the Republican base. Contrast that with Gingrich, Huckabee and Palin, all of whom have a base within Tea Party Republicans, all of whom have trafficked in the code phrases of Birtherism.

I would love to exist in an America where the racist, xenophobic delusions of Birtherism were not a relevant part of one of the two major political parties. I'm glad that George Will is trying to excise it from the Republican Party. But just because someone in DC says that the likes of Huckabee and Gingrich aren't "plausible" doesn't make it so.