Running Against Their Own Party?

Beinart suspects that 2016 Republican presidential candidates will distance themselves from the DC GOP:

Even if Democrats don’t choose Hillary Clinton, their 2016 nominee will be the de-facto incumbent. The worse Washington looks, the easier it will be for a Republican to campaign, as both Bush and Obama did, as outsiders untainted by beltway dysfunction. Even more importantly, the recent cascade of Republican horribles—Boehner’s inability to control his caucus, the breaking of the anti-tax pledge, the dissing of the Hurricane Sandy victims—has made it easier for Republicans to bash their Washington leadership, even from the center. Listen to Chris Christie’s rhetorical assault on John Boehner over Sandy aid—especially his declaration that in New Jersey, unlike Washington, people work together across party lines—and you can hear the beginnings of a new, Bush-like, anti-Washington Republican centrism.