Election 2016: RNC Gets Out Its Croquet Mallet ...

... and starts whacking itself right in the testicles. Best to get an early start, I guess, but at this rate they're gonna need a lot of ice packs.

They've picked "conservative" radio talking head Hugh Hewitt to host the first Republican presidential primary debate.

If you've never heard of Hugh Hewitt, that's because he's too simultaneously boring, politically inastute and thoroughly partisan to get much play in the mainstream media. Or hell, even on Fox.

Hugh Hewitt at the American Freedom Alliance conference at USC (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 2004, he mused that John Kerry's skin tone (it got a bit orange-ish) might become a deciding factor in the presidential election. In 2008, he took bets on when John McCain's campaign would close up shop and get out of the real contenders' way (he backed Romney -- we all know how THAT turned out in both '08 and '12).

As a debate moderator, he's nearly certain to ensure that voters come away with the following impression of the Republican field:



Twenty months out and already Reince Priebus seems to be going all-out to throw his party's third sequential presidential election. This could get fun. Or interesting, anyway.