Clever, seeing key Republican in the middle of breakfast (8)
I believe the answer is:
cerebral
'clever' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'key republican in the middle of breakfast' is the wordplay.
'key republican' becomes 'br' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in the middle of' indicates putting letters inside.
'breakfast' becomes 'cereal' (I've seen this before).
'br' put inside 'cereal' is 'CEREBRAL'.
'seeing' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cerebral that I've seen before include "Relating to the brain" , "Intellectual, brainy" , "Highly intellectual" , "Of the brain, intellectual" , "Concerning the brain" .)