Pundits Say Republican Party Is in Serious Trouble

Donna Brazile, Howard Dean among pundits who think GOP has lost ground since 2008.

The Super Bowl of presidential primaries, Super Tuesday, will take place on March 6. Then Republican primaries and caucuses in 10 states will take place across the country. While Super Tuesday is normally a day that political junkies await, a panel of conservative and liberal pundits was hardly enthusiastic about the occasion during a roundtable on ABC News program “This Week” on Sunday.

Whether Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney finally manages to gain a commanding lead over his opponents on Tuesday matters little, they say. That’s because the nasty political attacks the Republican candidates for president have lobbed at one another has weakened the GOP to such a degree that whomever emerges as frontrunner will have a challenging time unifying the party and defeating President Barack Obama on Election Day in November. Below are the other reasons pundits Howard Dean, Donna Brazile, George Will, Peggy Noonan and Matthew Dowd argue that the Republican Party is in tatters.

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Howard Dean: I actually think that the birth control stuff has probably sunk the Republicans when you add it to the Latinos, the anti-gay, the anti-Muslim. I mean there’s just so many groups you can offend, and women is a pretty big one.

Peggy Noonan: The debates have been one thing. I think all of this Super PAC money and the attacks that have been there are another thing that’s had a tough effect … I don’t think this’ll be over ’til June.

Donna Brazile: Four years ago 80 percent of the delegates were selected by now. Mitt Romney was not a factor. He dropped out of the race … Over the last three weeks what we’ve seen is a huge enthusiasm gap, less Republicans showing up to vote … So while Mitt Romney will emerge probably as the delegate leader, as well as win several more states, the problem is that every time he wins the Republican Party continues to lose. They lose enthusiasm. They lose an opportunity to have a standard bearer who can really challenge President Obama this fall.  

Matthew Dowd: The problem with this race for the Republicans … it’s been about Mitt Romney. The fundamental problem in this race is he is not seen as somebody who can unify the party, especially the various social conservative elements in this party, the social conservatives, the fiscal conservatives and the security conservatives.

George Will: The fact is there’s an economy of politics. There’s only so much time, so much enthusiasm and so much energy, and I think there may come a point when people look at the math and look at the defects of the Republican nominee, whoever it is, and say, ‘We have a better chance of maximizing the real objective which is to stop Obama by getting all the gavels in Congress, all the committee chairmanships in Republican hands.