Video: Why the GOP can?t find a candidate

>> an article in politico today roger simon writes that the gop has been unable to find a candidate saying that "is the field is not just weak, it is barren." what ushers forth from the throats of local republicans is not a cheer but a sigh. roger simon joins me now to talk about his article. thanks for your time.

>> thanks for asking me.

>> well, obviously, we've had many republicans on and you see them on msbc and michael steele and the west say they're really happy this is a weed out process. this is how you get the best candidate to face off against the president in november.

>> well, that's what they say on tv. that's how it's supposed to work. it's supposed to be darwinian, the survival of the fittest . the strong eat the weak. but we've eaten the weak for quite awhile now. and we're still looking for that strong republican. the race has gotten down to ron paul , newt gingrich , rick santorum , and mitt romney . romney was the front-runner for week after week after week. now rick santorum is. but you find me a republican leader who privately will say, rick santorum is going to be the next president of the united states . they're not saying that. they're saying if we nominate rick santorum , we're going to lose 35 states.

>> you write in your article that " mitt romney is hoping that had i party wakes up, blinks once or twice and says rick santorum is really electable as president is what parallel universe ? . the.

>> it is amazing when you think about the past few years and how republicans have been salivating to remove president obama from office. they've talked about the economy. they've tried to hit him hard on foreign issues even though we watched as the president walked out to confirm to the world that osama bin laden had been taken out. the list goes on and on. why is it the party could not get it together? were they banking too much on a chris christie or banking that sarah palin would somehow come and raise her fists and bring up the party?

>> i think they were banking on what you said, tamron. that many times were so bad, that the president was so unpopular, that the right track, wrong track numbers were so terrible that will obama could not be re-elected. and therefore, it really almost didn't matter which republican got the nomination. but the oldest political rule is you can't beat somebody with nobody. and the republicans are finding that out. they're finding out that people say, i'm talking about republicans .

>> right.

>> okay. we don't like president obama . some democrats say that. some independents say that. then they say, okay, which republican can i imagine sitting in the oval office behind that big desk running the nation? they try to visualize that person, and they run into big trouble .

>> you know, i played a clip earlier, roger, i'm sure you may have seen with joe scarborough on his show this morning and he goes in on an epic tear on rick santorum basically saying if you can't talk about the economy, you can't talk about the jobs, get off the stage here. how did this get so out of hand or is that even fair? because you do have, listen, i'm from texas, from the south. a lot of people hear that talk about religion and saying that the president is trying to take away religious liberty from this country. and they like what they're hearing.

>> that's the problem with the primary system. republicans , republican primaries appeal to republican activists who are more conservative than the party as a whole or the nation as a whole. same thing is true on the democratic side with the left wing . but this time, we had a frontrunner. mitt romney that so many republicans looked at and said, you know, he's not genuine. he's not a real republican. he's not one of us. so why don't we go with someone who is id logically pure? let's go with a rick santorum and you know, if it's a suicide pill , it's a suicide pill . at least we can be happy with the choice we made even if we don't win.

>> real quick i want to ask you, you have those who compare this battle if it is now between a two-pan race between santorum and romney to what we saw with then candidate obama and hillary clinton . they're saying this is what happened with the democrats. we saw this go to the bloody end with those two. do you buy nel comparison between what we're seeing with the democrats and their primary and what republicans are going through now?

>> no, i think the personalities are different. the issues are different. the playing field is different. the money raising capacity is different. i mean, if you accept rick santorum sort of as an underdog for a second here, do you really compare him to hillary clinton in terms of name recognition, ability to raise money , grasp of the issues? it's really hard to do. i don't want to dump on santorum and say he's a bad candidate.

>> sure.

>> what i'm saying is, if the republican party nominates him and they might, they're taking the economy off the table. just as joe scarborough said. and they're putting social issues, abortion, contraception, satan versus god . they're putting all of that on the table. and barack obama , president obama is going to be very happy if the economy is no longer on the table. he'll talk about social issues all day and all night.

>> right.

>> and he just -- to the democrats, all this is music to their ears.

>> all right. roger simon , i think you've got some great insight certainly. we'll see what our audience has to say. they've been tweeting us wait ong this conversation with you.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/46485593/

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