Chait responds to Douthat's fretting over the extreme weakness of the GOP field. Jon also explains his earlier prediction that Pawlenty would receive the Republican nod:
The party base has become sufficiently empowered over the last two years that I think its veto carries more weight than the establishment's; a candidate with the crazy but not the electability (i.e., Michele Bachmann) probably stands a better chance of nomination than a candidate with the latter but not the former (Romney.) That said, I've long thought the nominee would probably be somebody who could do both. That explains my bad horse race pick of Pawlenty, who turned out to be a poor campaigner, but also suffered from a terrible moment in the first GOP debate which sent his campaign into a death spiral from which it never recovered.
Bernstein likewise defends his boosterism of Pawlenty. I think they both under-estimate how crazy the GOP base has become in the face of Obama.
The Dish 