The timing could not be worse. Just three days after voters in Colorado made a fool of the “Morning Joe” host by proving that his high-profile, months-long demagogic campaign to convince the GOP to cave to Obama on gun control was 100% wrong, Morning Joe’s pals at the left-wing Politico announce that Joe Scarborough has penned a book about how the GOP can win in 2016:
The “Morning Joe” host’s new book, “The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Republicans Once Mastered Politics–and Can Again,” will be published Nov. 12 by Random House, and is edited by JON MEACHAM. The buzz among GOP insiders is that “The Right Path” has the potential to galvanize conservatives in the way Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative” did half a century ago — especially conservatives ready to return to the winning ways of Ronald Reagan, who is on the cover, shown striding down the White House colonnade.
Why would anyone take any political advice from someone this insulated and bubbled — so insulated and bubbled they ask Jon Meacham to edit their book? In front of the whole world, and literally for months, Scarborough was hysterically, infamously, laughably, and sanctimoniously wrong about a GOP issue as basic as gun control.
Morning after morning after morning after morning, Scarborough grabbed his cherry-picked polls, got on his MSNBC high horse, and predicted the end of the GOP and National Rifle Association if they didn’t take his advice on guns. Except Tuesday, in the bluer-than-red-state of Colorado, the exact opposite happened. Despite being outspent, two Democrats were recalled for agreeing with Scarborough on gun control, and it was Michael Bloomberg’s anti-NRA group that lost face, while the NRA once again proved its muscle.
Worse still, the man who says he knows the path to victory for the GOP has yet to even acknowledge how wrong his shrill anti-gun campaign was. Thursday on Morning Joe, a humiliated Scarborough refused to even acknowledge his role in the gun control debate. Instead, he laid it all off on Bloomberg.
Moreover, Politico’s description of his book pretty much proves Scarborough doesn’t know the definition of insanity. Apparently, he wants to put his failed gun control campaign on steroids and repeat the errors of ’08 and ’12 by appealing to the mushy middle with even mushier candidates:
If the Republican Party is big enough to reach out to disaffected moderates like Colin Powell, then it will be big enough to win the White House in 2016, even if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. The question is whether the GOP will choose to go the way of William F. Buckley or Glenn Beck.
That kind of pandering no doubt appeals to MSNBC-types, Scarborough’s Manhattan neighbors, and Jon Meacham. But like the gun control debate, it proves Scarborough has forgotten why Obama won last year and Romney lost: Obama appealed to his base and they came out in droves. Romney pandered to the middle, and his base stayed home.
But the guy who doesn’t understand something as basic as the fact that all the energy (and therefore the advantage) on gun control is with the right, is going to show the GOP the way back to the White House. Moreover, the guy who would have ensured the GOP alienate the highly energized gun rights advocates (which make up a large part of our base), is selling a blueprint for GOP victory.
Uh, huh.
All Scarborough is selling here is the snake oil of a soul-selling brand that made him wealthy with media love and riches.
Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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