Thread: USA TODAY Which hopeful is the face of the new GOP?

Which hopeful is the face of the new GOP?
By Susan Page, USA TODAY




No front-runner yet:
From left, Mitt Romney, John McCain,
Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.
Each has a shot at the Republican nomination —
only because none of them is fully acceptable
to all the GOP's major factions.



WASHINGTON — What do Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have in common?
Not all that much.

The first three have won a major state contest in the race for the Republican presidential nomination this year, and Giuliani hopes to join their ranks with a victory in Florida next week. Beyond that, there are significant differences in their résumés and political appeal — and that signals a crossroads ahead for the GOP.


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Huckabee is a personable former Southern Baptist preacher with a conservative Christian flock, McCain a maverick senator from the West with military credentials, Mitt Romney a can-do Northeastern businessman and Giuliani a tough-talking New Yorker who has been a prosecutor and mayor.


Each is viewed as suspect — or worse — by a major faction in the party whose nomination he's seeking. They meet tonight in Boca Raton, Fla., for a debate that could affect the outcome of the state's crucial primary.

A generation ago, Ronald Reagan united economic conservatives, social conservatives and national security hawks in a political coalition that on Election Day will have held the White House for 20 of the past 28 years. But the alliance he forged is fracturing, and the 2008 contest is all about what could succeed it.

Though the Republican Party has been in remarkable harmony for three decades, "it's quite clear that we've come to the end of both the Reagan and George W. Bush eras, and now we're at the beginning of a new era," says Newt Gingrich, an architect of the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress and author of a new book called Real Change

For all the fealty the Republican candidates have pledged to Reagan in this race, the former House speaker says anyone campaigning on a promise to replicate the Gipper "would have been like Reagan running in 1980 saying, 'We need Ike.' "

There's no shortage of advice from Gingrich and others about what should come next.

Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressional leader who now teaches at Princeton, has a book coming out called Reclaiming Conservatism. Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's forthcoming Leave Us Alone outlines his vision of a limited-government alliance. William Lind and Paul Weyrich, a founder of the New Right, are finishing The Next Conservatism.

Still, it is the presidential nominee who will put a face on the GOP and define its direction. (If he loses in November, of course, the battle will begin all over again.) There are signs that the nomination fight is going to take some time, through the Super Tuesday contests in 22 states on Feb. 5 and beyond. Former Republican national chairman Bill Brock says the nomination might remain unsettled even to the Republican convention in September.

"For the first time in recent history, we aren't going to have a president running, and the vice president is not running for anything," Republican strategist Alex Vogel says. "Whoever this nominee is, they are going to be the standard bearer. People are really going to look to them to lay out this vision" to unite the party.

Never before in modern times has there been such a muddle over the GOP nominee.

Republicans have seen three different contenders win the first three major contests — this year in Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan — something that hasn't happened in the GOP since primaries began to dominate the nominating process.

At this point, none of the contenders confidently can claim front-runner status. Four — McCain, Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani — can credibly argue they could be nominated. The fifth candidate still in the race, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, has the money to continue his anti-war, anti-establishment crusade.

The field hasn't been significantly winnowed not because the contenders are so strong, but because none of them is fully acceptable to all the major factions of the GOP.

"All of this has been sub rosa when the Republicans were doing well and the Democrats were the party of diversity and division," says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center in Washington. "Now with no continuity of leadership, given (President) Bush's unpopularity, the divides within the Republican Party have surfaced as these nominees scramble for a new coalition."

Redrawing the map

The Democratic race isn't settled yet, either, and the contest between New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama seems likely to continue past Super Tuesday as well. Former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who finished a distant third in the last two contests, is scrambling to get back in the mix in South Carolina's Democratic primary Saturday.

Even so, the policy positions among the Democrats are almost identical. All pledge to end the Iraq war, dramatically expand health coverage, push a big economic stimulus package and in general reverse the policies and priorities of the Bush administration.

Among the Republicans, though, the substantive and stylistic differences are wide — differences that would revise the electoral map and the GOP coalition, depending on which contender prevails.

Consider:

•Giuliani's leadership in New York City after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001 continues to draw an emotional response from audiences and the allegiance of some national security hawks. He says he can get votes from the sort of independents and moderate Democrats who twice elected him mayor. His nomination would enable the GOP to contest states such as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that the party has written off in recent elections, he argues.

The coalition Giuliani would put together would be more moderate, more Northern and more suburban than the one that elected and re-elected Bush.

On the other hand, many conservative Christians are uncomfortable with Giuliani's support of abortion rights and his personal life, which includes three marriages and a highly publicized affair. Richard Land, head of the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, says he personally wouldn't vote for Giuliani and predicts his nomination would spark a third-party bid by an anti-abortion candidate who would "get more support than some people think."

That could imperil the GOP's hold on Missouri and other states generally counted as Republican.

•Huckabee's strength is among just those kind of "values voters." They delivered his victory in the Iowa caucuses and his second-place finish in South Carolina. The former Arkansas governor carried evangelicals by 40%-27% over McCain in the Palmetto State, according to surveys of voters as they left polling places, but finished a distant fourth among non-evangelical voters.

He could count on support across the Republican base in the South, and his populist message might resonate with economically pressed voters in the Midwest. His heartland-based coalition would be more rural and more blue-collar than the current GOP.

Critics question whether he could win outside the South, though. He's drawn fire from some economic conservatives. "He simply has no credibility and really no support outside the evangelical movement," says Pat Toomey of the conservative Club for Growth, which aired TV ads in Iowa blasting Huckabee for raising taxes.

•Romney's fiscal record in Massachusetts, where he balanced the state budget without raising broad-based taxes, and his success in business has bolstered his support among economic conservatives. He's also worked to hold the Reagan coalition. He's taken a muscular stand on terrorism, and he changed positions to oppose abortion rights.

Although he was elected governor in the Bay State, Romney hasn't shown much strength in New England or the Northeast, losing to McCain in New Hampshire. "He's the generic Republican in the race," says analyst Stu Rothenberg of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. Romney would lead a classic GOP coalition of conservatives and moderates, business types and the affluent. He won the Michigan primary and has shown some strength in the West, carrying the Wyoming and Nevada caucuses.

However, Romney's efforts to cultivate social conservatives have had mixed success. Some conservative Christians view his Mormon religion warily — the Southern Baptist Convention website labels it a cult — and others question the sincerity of his conversion on social issues. Mickey Edwards says he probably wouldn't vote for Romney "not so much because I don't agree with his positions as because he's changed his positions."

•McCain's military background and staunch support of the war in Iraq has earned him formidable support among voters focused on national security. His willingness to stake out maverick views also makes him popular with the independents who typically decide politically divided states. His favorable rating among independents in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll this month was 59%, better than any of his Republican rivals and 9 percentage points higher than Clinton.

If McCain were the nominee, Rothenberg says his appeal to independents might give the GOP a shot at winning California — the nation's biggest electoral-vote prize and a state Democrats have carried since 1992. A McCain coalition would include conservatives and suburban independents, and his work on immigration could help him among Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing minority group.

But those same maverick stands, including votes against Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and support of campaign-finance limits, have cost the Arizona senator within the GOP. So has his sponsorship last year of an immigration bill that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in this country. In New Hampshire, McCain's clear victory was because of independents; he and Romney split Republicans.

"There are such bitter feelings about him because of a whole number of issues — I can't tell you the number of people who have said to me, 'If he's the nominee, I'll walk,' " Weyrich says. Count Weyrich among them: If McCain is nominated, he says, he'd probably support a third-party candidate.

'Grumbling' guaranteed

"No matter who the nominee is, there's going to be grumbling in the party," says Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. "The reason why there are three different winners is because there's not a consensus candidate, the consensus conservative. Absent that, we may wind up with the person least offensive to the largest portion."

"I'm telling you, it's going to come down to 'Which guy do we dislike the least?' " conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh said Monday on his radio talk show.

One risk is that a long nomination fight to identify that person will hobble the GOP in November. Since primaries began to determine party nominations, the side that settled on a nominee first has lost the White House only once, when Democrat Bill Clinton ousted the first President Bush in 1992.

"It's almost a rule of thumb that the party that wraps up its nomination fight the soonest goes on to win the general election," says political analyst Rhodes Cook. "Usually what it means is the nominee of one party has done a better job of consolidating the party's base."

What's more, the Republican nominee will need to unite and energize a party that's now divided and downbeat. Bush's low approval rating and worrisome economic signs — factors that have pumped Democratic determination — are discouraging Republicans.

"I've said for a long time that's something we need to watch very carefully," says Ken Mehlman, campaign manager for Bush's 2004 re-election and a former Republican national chairman. "I think it is easily fixed by our candidate, our nominee, when we have that person articulating a positive vision."

Whoever that turns out to be.



USA TODAY



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This again shows how drastic the media drive is to dump Ron Paul's honesty from the race.

Paul has outdone Rudy on every aspect of this campaign. He has raised more money by far, he has placed better in the primaries... think Rudy comes in last most often. But yet they put Rudy's picture up and no Paul's.

The media is owned and that is the saddest statement of all.

Originally Posted by Dianne

This again shows how drastic the media drive is to dump Ron Paul's honesty from the race.

Paul has outdone Rudy on every aspect of this campaign. He has raised more money by far, he has placed better in the primaries... think Rudy comes in last most often. But yet they put Rudy's picture up and no Paul's.

The media is owned and that is the saddest statement of all.

Actually Dianne Paul has not raised the most money or placed better in the primaries. He has done well in one or two, but not over all. His money is currently in about 5th place for the republicans you can find all those results for Money raised, Spent and Owed, Win, Place and Show for all canidates here at alipacs forums or at
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp
There are many web sites showing the same results. I just used this one because it a good example.

Actually Gregg you are wrong and the money graf you listed is not accurate.Did you read it ? Ron Paul raised over 6 mil in one day and it says he has raised only 8 + mil total.

I believe he did in fact place higher in all the primaries then giuliani too.He placed higher then Giuliani and Thompson in a couple of the primaries.

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Actually Gregg you are wrong and the money graf you listed is not accurate.Did you read it ? Ron Paul raised over 6 mil in one day and it says he has raised only 8 + mil total.

I believe he did in fact place higher in all the primaries then giuliani too.He placed higher then Giuliani and Thompson in a couple of the primaries.

USPatriot Can you provide a valid web site showing my sorce link is wrong show the information to us is wrong ?
This is not opinion its fact that Paul is about number 5 or less and failing in the money. Never First or best