Fun House Mirrors

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most conservative of all? That’s been the Republican mantra as they search for someone to run against Barack Obama. This weekend, they used the Conservative Political Action Conference to showcase their credentials. The Republican primaries have long since become a battleground to decide which candidate truly represents the soul of the Republican Party. In the wake of his triple victory, religiously devout Rick Santorum naturally promoted Christian fundamentalist principles as the proper yardstick against which candidates for the White House should be measured. He claimed the United States was founded on the principle that all rights come from God and that the country didn’t need a compromise candidate to convert that into political policy. By which he meant Mitt Romney, who can’t stand far enough to the right to please the right wing of the Republican Party and who went before the CPAC audience to fiercely defend himself against the charge that he is a liberal.

In the end, Romney won the straw poll held at the Republican summit. He also squeaked out a narrow victory in the Maine primary election held on Saturday. But to the party’s base, the multimillionaire is still not their fair-haired boy. This quest to find the most conservative candidate of all may even end up backfiring on the Republicans: According to the latest national opinion polls, Obama now leads against any Republican challenger, regardless of whether he’s named Romney or Santorum.