Free Republic

Republican political strategist Mark McKinnon – veteran of McCain and Bush presidential campaigns – acknowledged in an interview with David Frum that a third-party presidential effort for 2012 was not far off, and hinted at his involvement in one. In the podcast interview, McKinnon, who was discussing his recent Daily Beast column “A Centrist Manifesto”, lamented that “there’s nobody that gets rewarded for bipartisan behavior, [and] in fact they get punished.” To that end, he said, “there is a very real possibility for a legitimate third party effort for 2012 … American voters are so hungry for more voice, and...

David Frum’s blog post connects his dismissal from AEI with Brink Lindsey’s and Will Wilkinson’s departures from Cato. In the post, Frum makes some important and well-articulated points about the GOP’s lack of direction and what a Republican majority could yield: We are likely soon to have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, maybe the U.S. Senate too. And what will that majority do? The answer seems to be: They have not a clue. Unlike the Republican House and Senate majorities of 1994, unlike the Republican Senate majority of 1980, these new majorities will arrive with only slogans...