GOP Flavor in ’08 – UPDATED

A few posts down, I’d opined about the future of Tony Soprano and also suggested that Rudy Giuliani is the obvious candidate for the WH in ’08, to which Mr. Murphy took exception in the comments section. We’ve agreed to disagree, but Mr. Murphy wondered what I thought about a Mitt Romney/George Allen ticket, since I’d dismissed Allen as an uncharismatic zero. I figured I’d answer it here, and we could have a good debate.

Romney/Allen? THINK about what the Democrats and the press are going to do with Mitt’s religion. THINK what some conservative Christians will do about his religion. I like Mitt, but I don’t believe a Mormon can be elected to the Oval Office – not right now. If and when Romney gets serious, you’ll start to see articles about Mormons and what they believe and the “garments”, and the “pulling the wife through” to heaven, the white salamandar, the golden plates, and the father of the household being a god of his own galaxy. You’ll have “sophisticates” mocking it, and you’ll have evangelicals challenging him on points of scripture – even on the most basic precept of Mormonism, which is that a husband and wife are married “for eternity,” that they are still married after death and in the next life, which goes directly against scripture and Jesus’ teaching.

I know some people think religion will be a small issue. I disagree. Our nation is passionate in her belief and in her disbelief. The atheists and agnostics will mock Mormonism; the Evanglicals (and other Christians) on the right will feel repugnance toward some aspects of the LDS (Latter Day Saints). It will not be like JFK in the 1960’s where a few words will quell the fears of many. Betsy Newmark wrote a splendid piece on this matter last year – she relays a spot-on vision of the baggage a Mitt Romney presidency will haul along with it. She wrote another piece here. I think if Romney is serious about a run for the WH, he’d better read Betsy and anticipate what is coming his way.

And George Allen, I’m sorry, the guy is a zero. He has no personality, no charisma. He may be the best guy in the whole world, but in a media age, like it or not, charisma does count. Same for Pataki, same for Frist. Zero. Snore. Thud.

The next GOP candidate has to have a close-to skeleton-free closet. The only one I know who has that is Giuliani. Were there skeletons in his closet, the Clintons would have found them in 2000, and since then he has been happily married and living quite “respectably.” I’m sure that his ex-wife, Donna Hanover, who doesn’t mind being in the news, would provide a few “he screamed at me and I hid in the closet” headlines, but she is such an unlikeable person, herself, I doubt anything lasting could come of it. Rice probably has no skeletons in her closet, but we’ve already seen that the Democrats like to “suggest” that any unmarried or late-married person is “gay,” – they do it quite a lot – and that card will surely be played and Condi will have to deal with it, unfair as it may be.

The next GOP candidate has to have the public’s absolute trust that he cannot be bought or swayed by opportunism or polls. That’s Rudy, and maybe Rice. Frist and Pataki are goners, on this requirement. Mitt might be. Allen? I dunno.

The next GOP candidate for president has to be able to communicate better than President Bush. I love Dubya but we can’t have 8 more years of halting speech, and a WH that consistently drops the PR/backtalk/information ball – probably because they are so fed up with the press, I grant you – but it needs to be better. Rudy is crackerjack on this. He is clear, quick, decisive, humorous and he surrounds himself with people who know how to handle the press. He is not “glib” like a Bill Clinton, but he can handle himself very well and better, I think, than Hillary Clinton, who gets a pass on every flub.

The next GOP candidate has to be appealing to more than the GOP base – he or she needs to be able to snatch some folks from the moderate Democrats and even some not-so-moderate-but-serious-about-security Dems. I think Rudy can do that. I suspect Rice can. Allen cannot, nor the others.

The next GOP candidate has to be charismatic, and yes, have a patina, however thin, of ethnicity. John Kerry and Al Gore were the last two button-downed-droning-mainline-protestant types we’re going to see as serious candidates for a long time, I think. And to be honest, Kerry was so insecure and phony, and Gore was so nakedly crazed by the end of his 2000 campaign, that their weirdnesses stood in the place of ethnicity, which is probably the wrong word. Perhaps the word I want is “flavor.” President Bush is WASP but with a twinge of cowboy and plain-folks about him that is appealing. A staid, respectable white fellow with no twinge of flavor is going to die out there. He’s everyone’s competent project manager, but no one’s CEO. Again, who has got flavor in the GOP? Rudy. Rice. Romney has a little because he is exotically Mormon, but as I said, I suspect that flavor will not travel well. In a world where “It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp” is an award-winning song, a candidate has to bring more to the party than the dependability of a Maytag washer.

If the next President is not strong on security, strong on the WOT and a strong fiscal conservative, then none of the “social issues” that some call “deal breakers” will be relevant.

You know what’s funny? I know the press thinks John McCain is the front-runner…but honestly, he doesn’t even pop into my head.

The thing we all have to remember is that – in all of this, as in all of life – there are things seen and unseen at work. Whenever I get balled up about election-talk I always remember this: Rudy Giuliani pulled out of the NY Senate race in 2000 to attend to himself and his bout with prostate cancer. Had he not gotten cancer, he could very well have won the seat in the senate…and that would have made 9/11 even more horrific than it was, because once Rudy went to Washington his place would have been filled by the empty-suited “public advocate,” Mark Green. I cannot even begin to imagine what 9/11 would have been like with the ineffectual and mediocre Green at the helm in NYC, rather than Rudy.

Meaning, all things work to God’s purposes, even if – on the surface – things don’t seem so swell. Keeping the eyes open and the hands clasped in prayer still seems to me the best advice on any given day! :-)

Your thoughts?

UPDATE: Mark at Decision ’08 says Rudy is not acting like a candidate. Okie is strong on Rice. Hugh Hewitt says Mitt’s supporters are hard-wired.