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06-02-2007, 10:12 AM
From ROLLING STONE
For release 05/20/2007
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All Flipper, No Gipper
The GOP's pathetic candidates, or: Why three wrongs can't please the right
By Tim Dickinson
(c) 2007, Rolling Stone. First published in ROLLING STONE (r) Magazine. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.
It's a bad time to be a republican running for president. Thanks to President Bush's blunders and deceits, only twenty-nine percent of Americans favor installing another Republican in the White House. Democrats hold a staggering eighteen-point advantage among independents, and even nine percent of Republican voters have declared their intention to spurn the GOP in 2008. "The troubles of the Bush administration give the Democrats the best chance they've had for the White House in at least thirty years," says David Gergen, who served as a senior adviser to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Even history itself is against the Republicans: In the past century, only one two-term president - Reagan - has paved the way for the election of a member of his own party.
Democrats, to their credit, have fielded candidates worthy of the opportunity. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, along with Bill Richardson, headline the party's strongest crop of presidential hopefuls in living memory - a band of qualified and electable politicians that, boasts longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, "looks more like the Beatles than anything I've ever seen."
The Republican field, by contrast, looks more like the Monkees - a cast of misfits who, judging by their amateur-hour performances in the first GOP debate in early May, seem unnominatable, much less electable. "They've all got real liabilities," admits Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who has been a driving force in the party since he helped craft the Contract With America in 1994.
Some of the flaws are intrinsic: A quarter of Americans say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon (Mitt Romney), three in ten would reject a candidate on his third marriage (Rudy Giuliani), and forty-two percent wouldn't endorse a seventy-two-year-old (John McCain's age at inauguration). And then there are the issues: McCain continues to champion the bloody futility in Iraq, Giuliani has little hope of winning over Christian conservatives furious at his support for abortion and gay rights, and Romney has flip-flopped on nearly every political position he has ever taken. No wonder fifty-seven percent of likely GOP voters declare themselves dissatisfied with the current crop of candidates.
"I've never seen the Republican base more perplexed," confesses Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League. "McCain has lost his luster, Romney has flip-flopped, and Rudy has got baggage. Some people think their glaring weaknesses are going to cancel each other out - but I'm beginning to wonder if it won't kill all of them."
Perhaps the surest sign of Republican desperation is the attempt by restive conservatives to promote the potential candidacy of a man who wasn't even on the stage in the debate at the Reagan Library: Law & Order star Fred Thompson. This is a man who served eight undistinguished, skirt-chasing years in the Senate before stepping down because the job required too much effort. ("I don't like spending fourteen- and sixteen-hour days voting," Thompson explained.)
The GOP field for 2008 was supposed to be stocked with heavyweight Dixie-publicans, politicians befitting a party in which Southern evangelicals have positioned themselves as kingmakers. "We fully expected a run by Bill Frist, George Allen, maybe even Jeb Bush," says Charlie Cook, the veteran Washington handicapper. But those candidates fell by the wayside in the wake of congressional corruption scandals, the implosion of the Bush legacy, and macaca. "If George Allen hadn't been such an idiot, he'd be sitting pretty right now," says Luntz. "He was the guy who could have made it through both the primary and the general election."
Indeed, over the past year, Karl Rove's vision of a "permanent majority" has been torpedoed by Republican greed and incompetence. The party has been staggered by the administration's mishandling of Iraq and Katrina, as well as by the endemic corruption and cronyism that have turned the GOP - once the party of small government and fiscal restraint - into the party of reckless spending and record deficits. What's more, given the way that Bush and Rove have welded the GOP ever more firmly to the Christian right, the fiscal moderates and social-issue centrists who would like to return the party to its more traditional roots have been forced to subject themselves to extreme ideological makeovers in an attempt to appease the fundamentalist Christians who have a virtual stranglehold on the GOP nominating process.
No one has paddled more pathetically to the right than John McCain. The maverick senator entered the 2008 race with the formidable backing of the Bush political machine - an apparent quid pro quo for McCain's unexpected endorsement of the president in 2004. But McCain's transition from anti-establishment insurgent to establishment front-runner has been about as smooth as Iraq's path from dictatorship to democracy. "McCain's initial hope was to create an aura of inevitability about his candidacy - and that has completely failed," says Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax pressure group.
Seven years after McCain swept to victory in the New Hampshire primary, many in the party wonder if he has passed his elect-by date. The septuagenarian is showing his age, frequently losing his train of thought on the campaign trail, mixing up Iran and Iraq in his creaky performance at the debate - even appearing to nod off during the president's State of the Union address. Longtime admirers are concerned. "I think the rigors of the campaign are taking a toll on him," says Gergen. "He does not look well."
Selling your soul will do that to a man. In a transparent effort to get right with the conservative base, McCain has embraced the economic zealots whose tax cuts he snubbed in 2001 and 2003, as well as Christian hard-liners like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whom he once decried as "agents of intolerance." This reactionary shift has created incoherence on the campaign trail, as McCain has flip-flopped on issues such as gay marriage, tax cuts and abortion - often in the same sentence.
"McCain was the all-time winner of the authenticity bowl, and he's just squandering it," laments one seasoned observer of presidential politics. "The lesson he took out of 2000 was 'I gotta kiss ass with the base.' Lately, that's the only message that's coming out of McCain. And it's not even working."
To put it mildly. As he has become the chief spokesman for Bush's surge in Iraq, McCain has stumbled badly in the polls. His fund raising has also suffered: He raised only $13 million in the first quarter, and began the second with a paltry $3.4 million after debts - less money than fourth-place Bill Richardson among the Democrats.
Unlike McCain, Mitt Romney has plenty of money - the former governor of Massachusetts shocked the Washington political establishment by raising $21 million in the first quarter. But Romney has already burned through half that cash, and he remains bogged down at less than ten percent in the polls, thanks in large part to his own shameless pandering. The same man who voted for uberliberal Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic primary, pledged to outdo Ted Kennedy as an advocate for gay rights in 1994, and vowed to not back down in the fight to "preserve and protect a woman's right to choose" as recently as 2002, now paints himself as a Reagan Republican, the standard-bearer in the fight against gay marriage and devoutly pro-life.
And that's just the beginning. The man who appointed more Democrats than Republicans to judgeships in Massachusetts - including two champions of gay rights - now describes himself as a "strict constructionist" foe of "activist judges." While Romney positions himself as an anti-immigrant hard-liner, his lawn was tended for nearly a decade by illegal Guatemalan laborers. And the gun-control advocate - who used to boast, "I don't line up with the NRA" - joined the organization last August. "Who could have predicted," asks Gergen, "that a man as bright as Mitt Romney could be so stupid politically?"
With Romney and McCain faltering so badly, the Republicans are left with a candidate whom few insiders expected to emerge as a front-runner. "This is a strange race," says Stu Rothenberg, one of Washington's top political analysts. "The only guy who seems to be exceeding expectations is the guy with the biggest, deepest flaws - Rudy Giuliani."
The more Romney and McCain jockey for position with the far right, the better Giuliani looks. "He is benefiting from the same reputation that McCain used to have," says Toomey of the Club for Growth. "He is the straight-talking, straight shooter who doesn't always agree with everyone but doesn't pander to anybody. And that's going over quite well - even with people who disagree with him on substantive issues."
Many political strategists, however, remain convinced that Giuliani's poll numbers are padded by ignorance among voters who know him only as the man with the bullhorn who took charge amid the rubble of Ground Zero - not as the vindictive, foul-tempered Nixonite who attempted to foist his mobbed-up buddy Bernie Kerik upon the country as Homeland Security chief. "Rudy Giuliani's lead is artificial," says Gergen. "It's based on his name recognition and celebrityhood coming out of 9/11. But as people learn more about who he was on 9/10, they're considerably less enchanted."
Giuliani's personal history and views on hot-button social issues anger the "values voters" who dominate the GOP nominating process. A fallen Catholic on his third marriage - whose second wife learned of their impending divorce from a press conference - Giuliani personally supports abortion rights and once said he would pay for his own daughter to terminate a pregnancy. As mayor, he sued gun manufacturers for illegally flooding New York with black-market firearms. He hosted eight gay-pride receptions at Gracie Mansion, welcomed the Gay Games to New York, moved in with a gay couple during his divorce proceedings and embraced gay civil unions - to say nothing of his appearance in drag on Saturday Night Live.
"There's no way on this planet that Rudy is going to win the nomination," says Charlie Cook. "As soon as evangelical voters find out what this guy's positions are on cultural issues, his support is going to be like an ice cream cone in the middle of August - it's just going to melt."
Indeed, Giuliani's once commanding lead has already started to soften - as has his commitment to unpopular stances. At the debate, Giuliani began to succumb to the flip-flopping fever of his competitors, reversing his support for federal funding of abortion and even proclaiming that "it would be OK" to repeal Roe v. Wade.
McCain has turned up the heat on Giuliani by hiring Bush's former political director Terry Nelson, the prime suspect behind the recent leak of Giuliani's contributions to Planned Parenthood. And in March, a petition circulated by Christian Coalition activists in Iowa declared that Giuliani's "liberal record as mayor" and "the conduct of his personal life make it impossible for us to support his candidacy under any circumstances." Richard Land, president of the political wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, vows that his troops will boycott Rudy. "If Giuliani wants the presidency," Land says, "he'll have to do it without evangelical votes - and that's a real difficult mathematical equation."
As a result of such infighting, the Grand Old Party - long known for closing ranks around a single candidate - is in disarray. "This is the most Balkanized Republican primary season that I can remember," says Bob Barr, the former GOP congressman who led the impeachment fight against Bill Clinton. Gergen offers an even more dire assessment: "The party," he says, "is splintering." Without the support of the Christian right, it's hard to see how either McCain, Giuliani or Romney can win the nomination. According to Grover Norquist, the Republican revolutionary who is a close ally of Karl Rove, many evangelical leaders view the GOP race as nothing more than a contest between "two pagans and a Mormon."
Ironically, say party insiders, the one politician capable of unifying the Republican base isn't even a Republican. It's Hillary Clinton - the Democrat who galvanizes GOP hard-liners the same way that Dick Cheney does the MoveOn crowd. At the debate, there was only one point of absolute unanimity: Each of the ten candidates - from libertarian dove Ron Paul to anti-immigration whack-job Tom Tancredo - spoke passionately about the need to keep Bill and Hillary from a return trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "There's a new pragmatism on the part of Republican voters," says Dick Morris, who served as Bill Clinton's top political strategist. "And it's driven by their terror of Hillary."
That fear has given a huge boost to Giuliani, the one Republican who consistently tops Clinton in the polls. As Barr puts it, "Giuliani's strongest trump card is the claim that 'I can beat Hillary. I have the backbone, the chutzpah and the credentials to beat her - and these other folks don't.' "
Giuliani's chances are also buoyed by the accelerated primary schedule, which offers the massive electoral prize of California - dominated by Schwarzenegger moderates - as a detour around the evangelical roadblock in South Carolina that doomed McCain in 2000. Should Giuliani secure the nomination, his stance on social issues would actually help him win over independents in the general election. And faced with the prospect of a rerun of the Bill and Hillary show, the religious right would turn out in force to support Giuliani, warts and all. "If Hillary gets the nod," says Donohue of the Catholic League, "I can't imagine social conservatives sitting it out."
Yet even if Clinton ends up topping the ticket, the smart money remains on the Democrats. The primary reason that Newt Gingrich has stayed on the sidelines, according to an intimate of the former speaker, is that "he doesn't know whether any Republican can win this thing." As the violence in Iraq - and the number of U.S. casualties - continues to escalate, the GOP may simply be unable to distance itself from the disastrous policies of the Bush administration. "If you're a wagering man," says Gergen, "you'd have to say that the Democrats - if they don't once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - are the odds-on favorite to win this one."
SIDEBAR
The Fallback Squad
Do any of the GOP candidates have a shot in 2008?
When it comes to the 2008 presidential election, the Republican Party is just like Iraq - there's no Plan B. The second-tier GOP candidates looking to supplant Giuliani, McCain and Romney as front-runners have far fewer funds - and even deeper flaws.
Fred Thompson
Ticket to ride. Law & Order candidate seen as a "Southern-fried Reagan," according to Southern Baptist leader Richard Land. When focus groups are asked, "Would you want to have a beer with the candidate?" says GOP strategist Frank Luntz, "everybody says yes to Fred Thompson."
Baggage. Slammed by James Dobson of Focus on the Family as "not a Christian." Admitted he "chased a lot of women." Married a woman four years younger than his daughter. Has a reputation for laziness: Won't go on the road for long stretches because "I don't do frenetic."
DARK-HORSE ODDS 12-to-1
Sam Brownback
Ticket to ride. Kansas senator appeals not only to Christian fundamentalists (he serves only "one Constituent" - God; considers abortion murder and homosexuality immoral) but to economic fundamentalists ("He has a great pro-growth record," raves Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth).
Baggage. Baptized by a priest from the Catholic cult of Opus Dei (featured in The Da Vinci Code). A favorite of hatemongers: Fred Phelps, the "God Hates Fags" preacher infamous for disrupting gay funerals, says Brownback "likes what we're doing, and he tells me that."
DARK-HORSE ODDS 50-to-1
Mike Huckabee
Ticket to ride. Ex-Arkansas governor wins points with social conservatives for his divorce-proof "covenant" marriage. Nails the language of compassionate conservatism: "We can't say we're pro-life if, after the child is born, we're not concerned about affordable housing, decent education and adequate access to health care."
Baggage. Disliked by anti-tax right for "expanding government." Raised only $544,000 in the first quarter. Holds a concealed-carry permit; son was busted trying to board a plane with a loaded Glock ten days after Virginia Tech.
DARK-HORSE ODDS 80-to-1
Chuck Hagel
Ticket to ride. The Nebraska senator, a true conservative, is the GOP's leading voice against the war in Iraq. "There is an anti-war Republican vote out there - twenty-five percent of the party and growing - and Hagel would capture all of it," says Luntz.
Baggage. His non-announcement announcement of his candidacy in March was, Luntz adds, "One of the dumbest blunders of 2007. There's a rule in politics: Don't drag Washington reporters to Nebraska in the middle of winter to tell them absolutely nothing. They'll try to get even."
DARK-HORSE ODDS 100-to-1
Copyright 2007, Rolling Stone. First published in ROLLING STONE
Magazine. (r)
Distributed by Tribune Media Services. (http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1606)
For release 05/20/2007
TMS Customer Service: 800-346-8798
All Flipper, No Gipper
The GOP's pathetic candidates, or: Why three wrongs can't please the right
By Tim Dickinson
(c) 2007, Rolling Stone. First published in ROLLING STONE (r) Magazine. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.
It's a bad time to be a republican running for president. Thanks to President Bush's blunders and deceits, only twenty-nine percent of Americans favor installing another Republican in the White House. Democrats hold a staggering eighteen-point advantage among independents, and even nine percent of Republican voters have declared their intention to spurn the GOP in 2008. "The troubles of the Bush administration give the Democrats the best chance they've had for the White House in at least thirty years," says David Gergen, who served as a senior adviser to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Even history itself is against the Republicans: In the past century, only one two-term president - Reagan - has paved the way for the election of a member of his own party.
Democrats, to their credit, have fielded candidates worthy of the opportunity. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, along with Bill Richardson, headline the party's strongest crop of presidential hopefuls in living memory - a band of qualified and electable politicians that, boasts longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, "looks more like the Beatles than anything I've ever seen."
The Republican field, by contrast, looks more like the Monkees - a cast of misfits who, judging by their amateur-hour performances in the first GOP debate in early May, seem unnominatable, much less electable. "They've all got real liabilities," admits Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who has been a driving force in the party since he helped craft the Contract With America in 1994.
Some of the flaws are intrinsic: A quarter of Americans say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon (Mitt Romney), three in ten would reject a candidate on his third marriage (Rudy Giuliani), and forty-two percent wouldn't endorse a seventy-two-year-old (John McCain's age at inauguration). And then there are the issues: McCain continues to champion the bloody futility in Iraq, Giuliani has little hope of winning over Christian conservatives furious at his support for abortion and gay rights, and Romney has flip-flopped on nearly every political position he has ever taken. No wonder fifty-seven percent of likely GOP voters declare themselves dissatisfied with the current crop of candidates.
"I've never seen the Republican base more perplexed," confesses Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League. "McCain has lost his luster, Romney has flip-flopped, and Rudy has got baggage. Some people think their glaring weaknesses are going to cancel each other out - but I'm beginning to wonder if it won't kill all of them."
Perhaps the surest sign of Republican desperation is the attempt by restive conservatives to promote the potential candidacy of a man who wasn't even on the stage in the debate at the Reagan Library: Law & Order star Fred Thompson. This is a man who served eight undistinguished, skirt-chasing years in the Senate before stepping down because the job required too much effort. ("I don't like spending fourteen- and sixteen-hour days voting," Thompson explained.)
The GOP field for 2008 was supposed to be stocked with heavyweight Dixie-publicans, politicians befitting a party in which Southern evangelicals have positioned themselves as kingmakers. "We fully expected a run by Bill Frist, George Allen, maybe even Jeb Bush," says Charlie Cook, the veteran Washington handicapper. But those candidates fell by the wayside in the wake of congressional corruption scandals, the implosion of the Bush legacy, and macaca. "If George Allen hadn't been such an idiot, he'd be sitting pretty right now," says Luntz. "He was the guy who could have made it through both the primary and the general election."
Indeed, over the past year, Karl Rove's vision of a "permanent majority" has been torpedoed by Republican greed and incompetence. The party has been staggered by the administration's mishandling of Iraq and Katrina, as well as by the endemic corruption and cronyism that have turned the GOP - once the party of small government and fiscal restraint - into the party of reckless spending and record deficits. What's more, given the way that Bush and Rove have welded the GOP ever more firmly to the Christian right, the fiscal moderates and social-issue centrists who would like to return the party to its more traditional roots have been forced to subject themselves to extreme ideological makeovers in an attempt to appease the fundamentalist Christians who have a virtual stranglehold on the GOP nominating process.
No one has paddled more pathetically to the right than John McCain. The maverick senator entered the 2008 race with the formidable backing of the Bush political machine - an apparent quid pro quo for McCain's unexpected endorsement of the president in 2004. But McCain's transition from anti-establishment insurgent to establishment front-runner has been about as smooth as Iraq's path from dictatorship to democracy. "McCain's initial hope was to create an aura of inevitability about his candidacy - and that has completely failed," says Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax pressure group.
Seven years after McCain swept to victory in the New Hampshire primary, many in the party wonder if he has passed his elect-by date. The septuagenarian is showing his age, frequently losing his train of thought on the campaign trail, mixing up Iran and Iraq in his creaky performance at the debate - even appearing to nod off during the president's State of the Union address. Longtime admirers are concerned. "I think the rigors of the campaign are taking a toll on him," says Gergen. "He does not look well."
Selling your soul will do that to a man. In a transparent effort to get right with the conservative base, McCain has embraced the economic zealots whose tax cuts he snubbed in 2001 and 2003, as well as Christian hard-liners like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whom he once decried as "agents of intolerance." This reactionary shift has created incoherence on the campaign trail, as McCain has flip-flopped on issues such as gay marriage, tax cuts and abortion - often in the same sentence.
"McCain was the all-time winner of the authenticity bowl, and he's just squandering it," laments one seasoned observer of presidential politics. "The lesson he took out of 2000 was 'I gotta kiss ass with the base.' Lately, that's the only message that's coming out of McCain. And it's not even working."
To put it mildly. As he has become the chief spokesman for Bush's surge in Iraq, McCain has stumbled badly in the polls. His fund raising has also suffered: He raised only $13 million in the first quarter, and began the second with a paltry $3.4 million after debts - less money than fourth-place Bill Richardson among the Democrats.
Unlike McCain, Mitt Romney has plenty of money - the former governor of Massachusetts shocked the Washington political establishment by raising $21 million in the first quarter. But Romney has already burned through half that cash, and he remains bogged down at less than ten percent in the polls, thanks in large part to his own shameless pandering. The same man who voted for uberliberal Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic primary, pledged to outdo Ted Kennedy as an advocate for gay rights in 1994, and vowed to not back down in the fight to "preserve and protect a woman's right to choose" as recently as 2002, now paints himself as a Reagan Republican, the standard-bearer in the fight against gay marriage and devoutly pro-life.
And that's just the beginning. The man who appointed more Democrats than Republicans to judgeships in Massachusetts - including two champions of gay rights - now describes himself as a "strict constructionist" foe of "activist judges." While Romney positions himself as an anti-immigrant hard-liner, his lawn was tended for nearly a decade by illegal Guatemalan laborers. And the gun-control advocate - who used to boast, "I don't line up with the NRA" - joined the organization last August. "Who could have predicted," asks Gergen, "that a man as bright as Mitt Romney could be so stupid politically?"
With Romney and McCain faltering so badly, the Republicans are left with a candidate whom few insiders expected to emerge as a front-runner. "This is a strange race," says Stu Rothenberg, one of Washington's top political analysts. "The only guy who seems to be exceeding expectations is the guy with the biggest, deepest flaws - Rudy Giuliani."
The more Romney and McCain jockey for position with the far right, the better Giuliani looks. "He is benefiting from the same reputation that McCain used to have," says Toomey of the Club for Growth. "He is the straight-talking, straight shooter who doesn't always agree with everyone but doesn't pander to anybody. And that's going over quite well - even with people who disagree with him on substantive issues."
Many political strategists, however, remain convinced that Giuliani's poll numbers are padded by ignorance among voters who know him only as the man with the bullhorn who took charge amid the rubble of Ground Zero - not as the vindictive, foul-tempered Nixonite who attempted to foist his mobbed-up buddy Bernie Kerik upon the country as Homeland Security chief. "Rudy Giuliani's lead is artificial," says Gergen. "It's based on his name recognition and celebrityhood coming out of 9/11. But as people learn more about who he was on 9/10, they're considerably less enchanted."
Giuliani's personal history and views on hot-button social issues anger the "values voters" who dominate the GOP nominating process. A fallen Catholic on his third marriage - whose second wife learned of their impending divorce from a press conference - Giuliani personally supports abortion rights and once said he would pay for his own daughter to terminate a pregnancy. As mayor, he sued gun manufacturers for illegally flooding New York with black-market firearms. He hosted eight gay-pride receptions at Gracie Mansion, welcomed the Gay Games to New York, moved in with a gay couple during his divorce proceedings and embraced gay civil unions - to say nothing of his appearance in drag on Saturday Night Live.
"There's no way on this planet that Rudy is going to win the nomination," says Charlie Cook. "As soon as evangelical voters find out what this guy's positions are on cultural issues, his support is going to be like an ice cream cone in the middle of August - it's just going to melt."
Indeed, Giuliani's once commanding lead has already started to soften - as has his commitment to unpopular stances. At the debate, Giuliani began to succumb to the flip-flopping fever of his competitors, reversing his support for federal funding of abortion and even proclaiming that "it would be OK" to repeal Roe v. Wade.
McCain has turned up the heat on Giuliani by hiring Bush's former political director Terry Nelson, the prime suspect behind the recent leak of Giuliani's contributions to Planned Parenthood. And in March, a petition circulated by Christian Coalition activists in Iowa declared that Giuliani's "liberal record as mayor" and "the conduct of his personal life make it impossible for us to support his candidacy under any circumstances." Richard Land, president of the political wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, vows that his troops will boycott Rudy. "If Giuliani wants the presidency," Land says, "he'll have to do it without evangelical votes - and that's a real difficult mathematical equation."
As a result of such infighting, the Grand Old Party - long known for closing ranks around a single candidate - is in disarray. "This is the most Balkanized Republican primary season that I can remember," says Bob Barr, the former GOP congressman who led the impeachment fight against Bill Clinton. Gergen offers an even more dire assessment: "The party," he says, "is splintering." Without the support of the Christian right, it's hard to see how either McCain, Giuliani or Romney can win the nomination. According to Grover Norquist, the Republican revolutionary who is a close ally of Karl Rove, many evangelical leaders view the GOP race as nothing more than a contest between "two pagans and a Mormon."
Ironically, say party insiders, the one politician capable of unifying the Republican base isn't even a Republican. It's Hillary Clinton - the Democrat who galvanizes GOP hard-liners the same way that Dick Cheney does the MoveOn crowd. At the debate, there was only one point of absolute unanimity: Each of the ten candidates - from libertarian dove Ron Paul to anti-immigration whack-job Tom Tancredo - spoke passionately about the need to keep Bill and Hillary from a return trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "There's a new pragmatism on the part of Republican voters," says Dick Morris, who served as Bill Clinton's top political strategist. "And it's driven by their terror of Hillary."
That fear has given a huge boost to Giuliani, the one Republican who consistently tops Clinton in the polls. As Barr puts it, "Giuliani's strongest trump card is the claim that 'I can beat Hillary. I have the backbone, the chutzpah and the credentials to beat her - and these other folks don't.' "
Giuliani's chances are also buoyed by the accelerated primary schedule, which offers the massive electoral prize of California - dominated by Schwarzenegger moderates - as a detour around the evangelical roadblock in South Carolina that doomed McCain in 2000. Should Giuliani secure the nomination, his stance on social issues would actually help him win over independents in the general election. And faced with the prospect of a rerun of the Bill and Hillary show, the religious right would turn out in force to support Giuliani, warts and all. "If Hillary gets the nod," says Donohue of the Catholic League, "I can't imagine social conservatives sitting it out."
Yet even if Clinton ends up topping the ticket, the smart money remains on the Democrats. The primary reason that Newt Gingrich has stayed on the sidelines, according to an intimate of the former speaker, is that "he doesn't know whether any Republican can win this thing." As the violence in Iraq - and the number of U.S. casualties - continues to escalate, the GOP may simply be unable to distance itself from the disastrous policies of the Bush administration. "If you're a wagering man," says Gergen, "you'd have to say that the Democrats - if they don't once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - are the odds-on favorite to win this one."
SIDEBAR
The Fallback Squad
Do any of the GOP candidates have a shot in 2008?
When it comes to the 2008 presidential election, the Republican Party is just like Iraq - there's no Plan B. The second-tier GOP candidates looking to supplant Giuliani, McCain and Romney as front-runners have far fewer funds - and even deeper flaws.
Fred Thompson
Ticket to ride. Law & Order candidate seen as a "Southern-fried Reagan," according to Southern Baptist leader Richard Land. When focus groups are asked, "Would you want to have a beer with the candidate?" says GOP strategist Frank Luntz, "everybody says yes to Fred Thompson."
Baggage. Slammed by James Dobson of Focus on the Family as "not a Christian." Admitted he "chased a lot of women." Married a woman four years younger than his daughter. Has a reputation for laziness: Won't go on the road for long stretches because "I don't do frenetic."
DARK-HORSE ODDS 12-to-1
Sam Brownback
Ticket to ride. Kansas senator appeals not only to Christian fundamentalists (he serves only "one Constituent" - God; considers abortion murder and homosexuality immoral) but to economic fundamentalists ("He has a great pro-growth record," raves Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth).
Baggage. Baptized by a priest from the Catholic cult of Opus Dei (featured in The Da Vinci Code). A favorite of hatemongers: Fred Phelps, the "God Hates Fags" preacher infamous for disrupting gay funerals, says Brownback "likes what we're doing, and he tells me that."
DARK-HORSE ODDS 50-to-1
Mike Huckabee
Ticket to ride. Ex-Arkansas governor wins points with social conservatives for his divorce-proof "covenant" marriage. Nails the language of compassionate conservatism: "We can't say we're pro-life if, after the child is born, we're not concerned about affordable housing, decent education and adequate access to health care."
Baggage. Disliked by anti-tax right for "expanding government." Raised only $544,000 in the first quarter. Holds a concealed-carry permit; son was busted trying to board a plane with a loaded Glock ten days after Virginia Tech.
DARK-HORSE ODDS 80-to-1
Chuck Hagel
Ticket to ride. The Nebraska senator, a true conservative, is the GOP's leading voice against the war in Iraq. "There is an anti-war Republican vote out there - twenty-five percent of the party and growing - and Hagel would capture all of it," says Luntz.
Baggage. His non-announcement announcement of his candidacy in March was, Luntz adds, "One of the dumbest blunders of 2007. There's a rule in politics: Don't drag Washington reporters to Nebraska in the middle of winter to tell them absolutely nothing. They'll try to get even."
DARK-HORSE ODDS 100-to-1
Copyright 2007, Rolling Stone. First published in ROLLING STONE
Magazine. (r)
Distributed by Tribune Media Services. (http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1606)