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Last week, 2016 speculation/news was dominated by Karl Roves possibly botched smear attack on Hillary Clinton. But the real 2016 news was just how badly three prominent Republican aspirants were doing: the once dominant Chris Christie, whos arguably just seen the last three nails in his coffin; Marco Rubio, whose high-profile global warming denialism seems to have come at just the wrong time; and Rand Paul, with his one-step-forward, two-steps-back move on voter ID laws.

Tuesday, I wrote about Chris Christies doomed campaign prospects, beset by woes on three fronts: damning evidence from the mouth of his own press secretary at ongoing legislative hearingsthat he tried to cover up the Bridgegate scandal; the sixth bond downgrade of his administration (and third of the year) signaling his failure on the economic front; and the fresh, still-unfolding pay-to-play scandal first broken by David Sirota. But just because Christies prospects are so dire doesnt mean that anyone elses look that good, either, over on the GOP side.

Christies plummeting fortunes are widely seen as indications that the GOP establishment is in trouble, and it clearly lacks any obvious candidate to rally around. But its not as if any GOP candidate has really promising prospects even to get the nomination, much less win the general election. No candidate in Real Clear Politics poll tracking has cracked 20 percent since Chris Christie did it twice back in November, just after his reelection. No candidate is currently above 13 percent in RCPs polling average (Paul and Huckabee are tied for the lead, trailed by Jeb Bush at 12.3 percent).

The travails of Rubio and Paul this past week or so are illustrative of a much more general problem: The GOP bases increasing political isolation makes it virtually impossible for anyone who wins the primary to have a chance at winning the White House. And yet, even the slightest awareness of the general electorate can trip up candidates in their primary run. Rubio (who once supported cap-and-trade, before flip-floppingin his Senate race against Charlie Crist) showed his stuff on climate change denial last week, and the results were not pretty. Nor were things much better with Pauls modest criticism of the GOP going crazy with voter ID laws. Rubio was trying to tack hard right, while still seeming reasonable but he didnt. Paul was trying to seem reasonable, which he sort of did, until it became clear he had no intention of challenging the laws themselves.

Rubios problems began with his comments on ABCs This Week. The question put to Rubio by Jonathan Karl was refreshingly direct: Miami, Tampa, are two of the cities most affected by climate change. So putting aside your disagreement with what to do about it, do you agree on the science on this? How big a threat is climate change? Rubio ducked a direct answer to the question, and was off to the weasel-word races:

Rubio: I dont agree with the notion that some are putting out there including scientists, that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on whats happening in our climate. Our climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say this is now evidence of a longer term trend that is directly and almost solely attributable to man made activity.

Karl: You dont buy that

Rubio: I dont know of any era in world history where climate has been stable. Climate is always evolving. And natural disasters have always existed.

Karl: But let me get this straight. You do not think that human activity, the production of CO2, has caused warming to our planet?

Rubio: I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. Thats what Iand I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy.

See the rest here:
Rand Paul and Marco Rubios worst nightmare: Trapped between crazy GOP base and actual reality