Until 2015, the 2012 GOP primaries seemed legendarily nasty. There was blood drawn from all sides, and by the time Mitt Romney made it through the mud to the general election, the Obama team didn’t have any digging at all to do for the weak points in his armor and the inconsistencies in his record. The Republicans tore each other to shreds before they even had a horse in the big race.
Of course, they had other problems: They were facing an incumbent president and their nominee was barely able to stop putting his foot in his mouth long enough to change his position on another issue. But it seems as if they’re setting themselves up to face the exact same problem in 2016.
Marco Rubio is iffy at public speaking and not so hot at thinking on his feet in debates, either. Donald Trump can’t get a sentence out without insulting someone. Ted Cruz is just unlikable. Ben Carson sounds like he’s reading from a very unreliable Wikipedia article every time he starts discussing foreign policy. John Kasich is boring and his name recognition is low. All of these things would be handicaps in a general election by themselves, but they’re potentially surmountable obstacles, for the most part. It’s not as if we only elect fascinating, lovable, blindingly intelligent and nice guys to the White House.
But they’re combining these weaknesses with a set of campaigns so negative it seems that no one is going to leave the primaries unscathed. Only Kasich and Carson seem to be refraining from clawing the eyes out of their competitors, but the favor is not being returned.
The GOP is crippling itself. Rubio and Trump are hammering Cruz about hypocritically being pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants. Everyone — mostly ultraconservative Cruz — is getting on Trump and Kasich about whether they’re really conservative, or just playing pretend. Cruz is stealing Carson voters in Iowa by telling them Ben’s out, and Trump is ripping into him about that dishonesty and his birthplace. Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, now fallen from whatever meager grace they had managed to scrape together, fired shots at Rubio’s lack of executive experience as they left.
In some cases, these attacks may be entirely valid: Rubio does lack executive experience, and Cruz did once appear to argue for amnesty, even as he continues to try to tear into Marco Rubio for the "Gang of Eight" bill.
In other cases, as with Cruz not really being an American, the attacks miss the mark. But the validity of the attacks doesn’t really matter — the way they affect the candidates’ images does.
Hillary Clinton — who will be, in all likelihood, the boss battle of the campaign for one of these men — isn’t exactly a stellar candidate herself. People don’t like her or trust her, and the scandals plaguing her campaign aren’t likely to go away before we vote in November. But the fact is, the GOP candidates are making it even easier for her to win by engaging in knockdown, drag-out fighting over personal issues and image.
In the general election, she’s probably going to be facing Cruz, Trump or Rubio. By that time, how much of any of their characters is going to be left standing? Rubio is already being portrayed as a flip-flopping, stammering incompetent. Cruz is quickly getting a reputation for not only being obnoxious and unpleasant, but also being a lying snake with a nasty streak. Trump barely needed someone else to showcase his flaws, but as a result of the attacks leveled against him, he’s looking more and more every day like a fake Republican with skin so thin it’s laughable.
These things may or may not be true. But it doesn’t matter because this is how they’re showcasing each other to the electorate.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have enjoyed a relatively peaceful rivalry. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton is even close to a strong contender in any other race, but they’re more competitive about policy than personality, which means that they’re not getting bogged down in half as much dirt as the Republicans are.
It may be too late for the GOP to have a chance at having a nominee with an unassassinated character, but they should have learned from last time that all they’re doing is making their final opponent’s job easier.