Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Republican credibility drops as rapidly as gas prices

_{Visual source: Newseum}

EJ Dionne:

Recalls and impeachments are a remedy of last resort. Most of the time, voters who don't like an incumbent choose to live with the offending politician until the next election, on the sensible theory that fixed terms of office and regular elections are adequate checks on abuses of power and extreme policies.

The question facing Wisconsin's citizens is whether Republican Gov. Scott Walker engaged in such extraordinary behavior that setting aside his election is both justified and necessary.

Reid Wilson:

Blame the increased polarization in our politics, or the millions of dollars that have fueled virtually non-stop advertising campaigns for and (mostly) against the president's initiatives. Blame the slow and stagnant economic recovery, or the cable news bubble that seeps ever deeper into the media's consciousness. Whatever the cause, the effect is that the electorate is narrowly and deeply divided -- about half the electorate will vote for Obama, about half will back Romney, and the very few in the middle are likely turned off by the entire debate.

That suggests we won't see the kind of movement that swept Obama into the White House four years ago.

Both campaigns seem to recognize this. It's evident in strategies geared toward turning out their respective bases, and the lack of attention being paid to the undecided few.

Matthew Cooper:

Bain has launched another $6 billion fund for investments. It's working hard to lure pension funds. Funds are putting more, not less into private equity -- about 11 percent of their total assets. That's up from about 1 percent a decade ago. The reason is obvious, of course. Private equity can offer a solid return on investment and it lends diversification to a portfolio.

If Romney were wise, he'd cite all the cop and firefighter and teacher funds that fueled Bain's rise and his. He'd say we're all in it together.

But no aspirant in today's Republican party can bring themselves to say anything nice about unions -- even if it's in their own self-defense. In the age of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, public employee unions are greedy budget busters that are using their political leverage to extort taxpayers. Conceding that their pension funds are driving the GOP nominee's claim on the White House undermines that narrative.

Dana Milbank:

But in singling out minority groups to make his political points, [GOP Rep. Trent] Franks risks aggravating a long-term problem for the Republicans. According to primary exit polls, 90 percent of GOP voters this year have been white. It's difficult in 2012 to win with such a statistic; over the coming decades, as minorities become the majority, it would relegate the party to irrelevance.

Jonathan Capehart:

By March, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) declared that Obama was "fully responsible for what the American public is paying for gasoline.' Not true, as Bryan Walsh at Time pointed out then. And by April, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS put out an ad echoing this point. 'No matter how Obama spins it,' the narrator intoned, 'gas costs too much.'

But by then, gas prices were starting to fall. As yesterday's Post story noted, the national average gas price, which peaked at $3.91 in early April, was down to $3.64 on Memorial Day. That's 17 cents cheaper than a year ago. According to Politico, Republicans are still going to target the president on gas prices. But with fuel costs expected to continue their downward slide, the GOP can expect its credibility on this issue to follow suit.

Ross Douthat:

Just because a sentiment is honest, though, doesn't mean that it's correct. 'I'm running for office, For Pete's sake, I can't have illegals' was both a cynical read on Romney's undocumented landscaper problem and an entirely accurate one. But 'I'm running for president, and I need Donald Trump in my corner' manages to be at once cynical and stupid...

Given the bad publicity he's obviously capable of generating for Romney's campaign, then, giving Trump the stiff-arm would not only be the right thing to do but the crafty thing as well. The fact that Romney thinks otherwise suggests that underneath his public cynicism lurks something more troubling: A deep miscalculation about which votes he needs to win and how.

Wow. If you're a Republican and you've lost Douthat, you have to be both incredibly cynical and incredibly stupid.

Now, here's something you may not have seen:

Jenny McCarthy has a body count attached to her name. This website will publish the total number of vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine preventable deaths that have happened in the United States since June 2007 when she began publicly speaking out against vaccines.

Is Jenny McCarthy directly responsible for every vaccine preventable illness and every vaccine preventable death listed here? No. However, as the unofficial spokesperson for the United States anti-vaccination movement she may be indirectly responsible for at least some of these illnesses and deaths and even one vaccine preventable illness or vaccine preventable death is too many.

Imagine being remembered for this. That's some legacy.