IT IS now getting a bit urgent. Many Republicans would say desperate. The eight-month race to the first presidential caucuses/primaries is already under way, and in 10 days Republican hopefuls will line up for a debate in key New Hampshire. It is in the early contests, there and Iowa, that a flag-bearer will emerge, as 17 of the last 18 major party nominees did.
But as yet they’re a pretty undistinguished bunch, a choice as Washington Correspondent Lara Marlowe puts it between “blandness and craziness”, and hardly a serious threat to an Obama second term. Nearly four in ten voters leaning towards Republicans, according to the latest Post/Pew Research Centre poll, are unhappy with their current choices in the presidential field.
The long-expected formal declarations yesterday by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and next Monday by former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum add some weight though little inspiration.
To date the debate has been dominated by the radical populist – and arguably unelectable – right, the will-she-won’t-she antics of Sarah Palin, the brief aborted campaign of Donald Trump, and the Tea Party’s new star in the House Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who may also stand. The strident tone is one thing, but, in truth, the ideological divide has not been great. All the contenders are conservatives who favour spending and tax cuts, less regulation, and to varying degrees, oppose abortion, gun control and gay marriage.
For the party establishment the hope is that a white knight will yet emerge who can perform the miracle of appealing to the deeply conservative base while providing a bridge to the centrist and independent voters who elected Obama. They may wait in vain, however. It may simply be an impossible task, despite the reality that, as Josh Kraushaar writes in the National Journal, "no president since Franklin Roosevelt has been re-elected with unemployment above 8 per cent". But the Republicans are prisoners of the two-step voting system and the power it gives to party supporters.
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, could in theory be the man to do it; popular with the Tea Party crowd, but like Romney and his fellow Mormon, former Arkansas governor Jon Huntsman, a more mainstream, business-friendly, establishment conservative. But in the polls Pawlenty trails badly behind current favourite Romney (4.3 per cent to 17.4 in the Real Clear Politics running average). But Romney and Hunstman are both deeply suspect to true-red Republicans, the former for his one-time championing of healthcare reform, the latter for taking a job as an Obama ambassador. It is difficult to see either man galvanising a party majority.
But, still out there and undeclared: Florida’s son of the Bush clan, Jeb? Tough New Jersey governor Chris Christie? Star of the House budget committee Paul Ryan? Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, as well as Texas governor. Rick Perry? Former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign has, however, virtually self-destructed before launch ... Whether any of them could give Obama a real run is unlikely.