Derwood

We're just over 18 months from the next presidential election, and it's very interesting to watch how the GOP is shifting to set itself up for the election season.

In 2010, the Republicans actively courted/catered to the fringe. The Tea Party's anger was a huge asset in gaining seats in the midterm elections, and selling themselves as the "party of jobs" was easy when unemployment was peaking.

But now the fringe is more of a detriment than an asset. Many more people come to vote in the presidential elections, so the GOP has to re-market itself to the moderates/independent voters. We can already see the shift:

- Sarah Palin has been kept out of the news cycle
- Glen Beck taken off the air
- An unelectable celebrity (Trump) falls on the birther sword so the talking heads can decry the birth certificate issue.
- Michelle Bachman says the GOP should back off on killing Planned Parenthood.
- Ann Coulter starts toeing the party line, backing Romney.

None of these things happened by chance. We know that Karl Rove controls the narrative for the Republicans, and nothing happens by chance. I wouldn't be surprised if/when Scott Walker suddenly backs off on the labor issue.

The one thing that doesn't fit right now is the Paul Ryan budget plan. I saw an NBC poll that showed that the most supported "solution" to closing the deficit was taxing millionaires, while the least supported solution was vouchers for Medicare. Ryan's budget proposes the opposite.


So, does anyone else feel this shift going on? Are there other signs that the narrative is moving more to the center?

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