While discussing the current crop of Republican presidential candidates being forced to run even further to the right because of the "tea party" demanding that they yield to their demands, John McLaughlin asks the Financial Times Richard McGregor "who looks the cleanest to you as far as tea party invulnerability is concerned.” McGregor points to Michele Bachmann as the likely candidate, but also points out that she’s the last candidate that any of them want to win the primaries.

To which Sarah Palin fan-boy Pat Buchanan responds:

BUCHANAN: She and Sarah Palin are both, uh, tremendously acceptable to the tea party, but they don’t pass yet the threshold of being seen as a president by the…

MCLAUGHLIN: Why?

BUCHANAN: Well because they just haven’t gotten there yet.

MCLAUGHLIN: Why?

Buchanan follows up with saying that they’ve yet to prove themselves in debates, like Ronald Reagan did, as if that’s ever going to happen. And McGregor and Eleanor Clift point out the obvious. McGregor says they’re not serious candidates and Clift asks just how much time it will ever take whether it’s Trump or any of the rest of them touting this birther nonsense to ever achieve that level where they’re taken seriously and says “I don’t see that coming.” Thanks for pointing out the obvious Eleanor.

When she also points out that these TeaBirchers might be able to win Congressional districts, but they’re not going to win a presidential election, the best that Buchanan and Monica Crowley can come up with in response is that they’re going to have to cater to that crowd to get through the primaries.

I think sadly they’re right and they are going to have to cater to that crowd, and so are Clift and McGregor in pointing out that it makes anyone who does unelectable. I’m just curious how if the winner ends up being someone who felt forced to move that far into wingnut land, how they attempt to bring themselves back where they don’t look like they're just full out birther conspiracy theory nuts.

This segment just served as a reminder of just how crazy the Republican presidential primary is going to be this year with their TeaBircher, Libertarian, birther wingnut base demanding the type of purity tests out of the candidates that were discussed here.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the fact as Steve Benen wrote about this weekend that the supposed “main stream” Republicans have basically decided that openly admitting that their party wants to increase unemployment and lower wages at the same time is somehow a good idea.