If you thought 2012 was silly, buckle in.
Yessssss.
The political arm of The Heritage Foundation — the prominent conservative think tank — plans to release detailed evaluations of all the presidential candidates for the first time this September, POLITICO has learned, and it hasn’t ruled out endorsing a candidate during the Republican primary.
[Some dude in charge]'s pleased that the first three Republican senators to announce their bids — Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio — are all allies of the 501(c)(4) group. Rubio, for instance, will visit Heritage’s offices at noon Wednesday to speak about his tax plan.
The good news is that Heritage has become a den of premium crackpotism, as evidenced by their decision to put ex-Senator and notable crazy person Jim DeMint in charge of the place a while back, and they won't be held back by petty concerns like whether any of the candidates are secretly five possums tied together and stuffed into a suit. On the contrary, the only way to snag the coveted Heritage endorsement will be to out-rightward every other person in the race, and in an early primary season that already tends to reward extremist rhetoric having Heritage Action there to whip would-be centrists back into line will do none of them any favors.
Heritage Action wants to encourage GOP presidential candidates to stake out potentially controversial terrain when their strategists want them to play it safe.
“We need to prove that it’s actually our solutions, not hers, that can provide opportunity for all and favoritism to none,” he said. “Just because talking about the Laffer curve worked in the 1980s, we can’t be a party that just continually talks about the Laffer curve.”
No sir. You've also got to talk about brown people, and why we need more handguns these days. And why Jesus hates gay people, and why "freedom" means making sure the wommenfolk don't get certain pills.
So that'll be a thing. Probably not welcome news for anyone who still harbors hope that our political theater might get slightly less insane, one of these days, but a bright day for circus aficionados.