I love to see the anti-Republican slam diaries and front page posts here at dKos. The latest Giuliani scandal, Willard Romney exposed as a serial liar and flip-flopper, a video of Fred Thompson waking up and saying "Waa? Hmm." and dozing back off. That's all a lot of fun. Keep 'em coming!
But it's also all kind of pointless. Because the Republican race is down to two candidates, and they're not the ones you regularly see lambasted here at dKos. The Republican nominee will be either Mike Huckabee or John McCain and it's time we start thinking about them.
(I would just like to say, parenthetically, to the Edwards supporters who are reading this diary to disprove the contention that he's out of the race and to the Clinton supporters who are reading this diary to point out that the title should say "two candidate race", and to the Obama supporters who are reading this diary to dispute the Edwards supporters -- to all those people, I'd just like to say "psyche"!)
At various times Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson have all been considered serious possibilities for the Republican nomination. By now it should be clear that Fred Thompson has gone nowhere and won't be going anywhere, except possibly to the home for retired actors. About the only thing his campaign has done for is to put him on the inside track for the supporting role of Admiral Stockdale in the upcoming Ross Perot biopic -- "Who am I? What am I doing here?"
I have to confess that I was of two minds about Giuliani early on. On the one hand, as a New Yorker I'm pretty familiar with him as a nasty little man with few interpersonal skills, and inability to function under pressure (despite his perfectly adequate performance on and immediately after 9/11), and his scandal-plagued personal life. On the other hand he has the advantage of his defects and they're the kind of defects that I could well see appealing to the Republican primary electorate -- primarily and amazing huge ego, a dislike of minorities, a complete lack of introspection, and a belief in his own complete self-righteousness.
But by now it ought to be clear that however appealing his defects might be, the Republican primary electorate is not going for him. I think that's due to his poor campaign skills -- he's an ugly, bald, lisping man (not that there's anything wrong with that -- I'm an ugly, bald, lisping man albeit not a candidate for anything) who has made the fatal mistake of believing his own press. And the fact that he's lousy on the campaign trail has only been compounded by a seemingly endless outpouring of both new and revived scandals from his mayoralty and subsequent business life.
He may be ahead in a few national polls, but he's on a strong downward trend and that he might actually pull it out and be the nominee is simply too much for us to hope for at this point.
Willard Romney is the only one of the Republican "big three" who can still be considered seriously in the running. But has he ever had a chance? He's had to dance around the issue of his Mormon religion and although religious bigotry is never to be celebrated I have to say it can't have happened to a sleazier fellow. Romney has had to deal with the twin issues of not being a real Christian (to the Republican evangelicals who so heavily influence the Republican primaries) and not being a real conservative (to anyone who can watch a You Tube video).
Romney rocketed into an early lead based on good looks and the application of a lot of money -- much of it his own -- to political process. But the problem is that Republican voters just don't seem to like him, or to trust him. He's still in the game but only as a default candidate if no real Republican comes along.
And there are two real Republicans to choose from.
The first is Mike Huckabee. He's the new "W" -- a southern governor playing the compassionate conservative card but willing to happily provide over state executions and boast of the number ("Oh yeah, Willard? How many guys did you fry, you Mormon wimp?"). Unlike Bush he's a true blue (or red), honest-to-uh-God evangelical. A Southern Baptist.
He talks a good talk and frankly his positions on governance, spending, infrastructure, and issues like that sound downright reasonable for a Republican. They will give cover to the fundamentalists to vote for a guy whose other statements and positions -- his social ones -- are too embarrassing to get behind.
The Club For Greed crowd doesn't like him (he's a bit too Christian for their tastes, I imagine, although they may come to realize that it's all bluster and no stigmata) and they will likely work to do him in. But by virtue of the support he'll receive from the theocratic wing of his Party he's a major contender.
The other contender is John McCain, the John Kerry of the 2007 primary season. Like John Kerry, he's the Party warhorse. Like John Kerry, he's fallen pretty low in fund raising and polling. Like John Kerry his political obituary has been written. And like John Kerry, he's kept his shoulder to the grindstone and is poised for a rebound. For any Republican who wants to vote for a reliable, consistent, conservative-but-mainstream non-Evangelical candidate, McCain is the guy. When the inevitable "flight to quality" happens in Republican voting and the Republican primary electorate has to consider the grabbag of duds and losers they're faced with, McCain is going to look pretty good.
I'm loath to make political predications because no one really knows what's going to happen. A candidate scandal, a health scare, a great debate performance -- all these things can change the race in unpredictable ways. But if I had to bet now what the Republican race will look like after New Hampshire, I'd have to put my money on a Huckabee vs. McCain race.