When one looks back at past Presidential campaigns at the numerous Presidential wannabees who failed to gain the nomination, one realizes the evolution of some of them from a respectable moderate conservative view to an extremist far Right advocacy now!
It is astounding to see people the author once respected going off the deep end, in their desire to conform to the Tea Party crowd!
Two such examples are former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who sought the GOP nomination in 2008, and former Tennessee Governor and Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, who sought the Presidency in 1996 and 2000, and served as Education Secretary under President George H. W. Bush.
Huckabee has his own talk show on radio and a Fox News Channel show as well, and he sounds like a total right wing lunatic these days, instead of the reasonable, personable conservative he was as Governor and as a candidate for President. It is astounding how he has caved in to the Tea Party crowd in his mad quest to enrich himself by saying what his right wing audience wants to hear!
And Alexander, now a Senator from Tennessee, was someone to be respected, but now is off the wall in his views, including wishing to end the minimum wage, which is already way behind the cost of living, but yet he wants to keep low wage workers in permanent poverty!
Both should be ashamed of themselves, as their legacy will be the destruction of their reasonable moderate conservative image, which at the time of the Presidential Elections of 1996, 2000, and 2008, made them decent alternatives to Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain!