A Marathon Not a Sprint
by Patrick Ruffini :: September 16th, 2007 11:46 pmI haven’t had much to say about the overall state of the Republican race lately. I’ll cop to a little laziness here. This thing is just so darned hard to read. Anyone who argues that this isn’t jump ball between some permutation of Giuliani/Romney/Thompson is probably lying to you. If there is anything this campaign has proven, it’s that this race is a marathon not a sprint, and making sweeping predictions based on short-term momentum shifts means you’ll be eating crow the next week. As if we could forget: McCain is the frontrunner! Romney is at 3%! Rudy is doomed because of his Houston Baptist speech! And a week ago, Fred is doomed because of laziness/staff bloodletting!
Let me take a step back here. Tune out all the noise, and just ask: What are the central facts of this campaign that are likely to remain central facts in January? Put another way: Begin with the end in mind. What are the basic claims that each of the candidates are likely to press in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire and beyond? I believe there are three.
1. Rudy’s Electability
Rudy’s electability argument is so central to his candidacy (and his supporters hope, so powerful) that it’s hard to talk about it without giving it the adjective, “nuclear.” The conventional wisdom about Rudy wins is this: He underperforms in the first few primaries and caucuses, and then, back against the wall, someone breaks the glass, presses a big red button with the word “Hillary” on it, everything suddenly comes into focus, and the field is cleared.
The problem with this argument is that electability is very much a moving target. If Romney, Thompson, or someone else were to get a massive wave of free publicity out of wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, their electability numbers could improve dramatically overnight. Before the Iowa Caucuses in 2004, John Kerry was trailing President Bush by 15 points. After them, he was leading by 3. The non-Giuliani & McCain candidates benefit from relative obscurity and have significant room for growth.
The question is how much would they need to improve to negate this advantage? I would say that if Romney or Thompson start performing within 3 to 4 points of the Clinton-Giuliani spread, the Rudy electability argument starts to take on serious water. If they don’t, it will be difficult for an undecided primary voter in a late-voting state to knowingly vote for someone likely to lose the general election to Hillary. Team Giuliani will carpet-bomb with this message, and provided it still rings true, I suspect they’ll be effective given that Rudy has already established his plausibility as a nominee on judges, guns, and immigration (the recent kerfuffle notwithstanding).
2. Romney’s Early State Strength
Mitt Romney’s strength in the early states remains a highly salient point. Right now, Romney is the only candidate with a clear, plausible path to the nomination. It’s one that basically boils down to Win Iowa, Win New Hampshire, Win Michigan, Win Nevada, and hope that by that point you’re running #1 in the national polls and are competitive with Hillary thanks to an injection of positive name ID.
Because Romney’s strength is pretty much all out there right now, the risk of failure is greater. If there is any team in politics that can pull it off, Romney’s can. But the risk is enormous. If he loses New Hampshire, it’s over.
The closeness of the race leaves no margin for error for any of the candidates, and that includes Giuliani and Thompson. The only difference is that Romney starts out with insanely high expectations in these early contests.
The Giuliani counter-argument that one can underperform in the early states and still win is not wrong. But it ignores the fact that to date, it has only worked for prohibitive frontrunners with organizational advantages Attila the Hun would dare not challenge. Bush in ‘00, Dole in ‘96, and Reagan in ‘80 were effectively the only Republicans on the minds of primary voters in the late-voting states (Reagan is a bit different because the calendar was still so staggered back then). They could afford not to meet expectations in the first few primaries. None of the current candidates have this luxury.
It’s not talked about very much, but Giuliani does have an early state opening of his own: New Hampshire. A win there probably won’t give him unstoppable momentum, since it’s in his regional home base, but it would eliminate Romney and (worst case scenario for them) set up a clear, nomination-deciding confrontation with Fred Thompson in Florida.
3. The South Will Rise (Again)
Fred has not been central to this analysis so far. That’s because, despite his phenomenal poll numbers putting him within striking distance of frontrunner status, he lacks an instrument for converting these poll numbers into primary victories.
How so? Currently, the only early states he polls well in are South Carolina and Florida, both below the Mason-Dixon line. As far as early states go, they are well to the back of the line. Fred would need to dramatically step up is game in Iowa to weather an expected third (or worse) in New Hampshire. As things stand today, the first few dozen news cycles once the voting starts do not stand to be kind to Fred Thompson — unless he manages to jumble the equation somehow.
And yet… the South’s playing a small role in the primary process would be, well, odd. The South Carolina primary (where Fred is favored) has traditionally had the last word on the nomination. It seems difficult to imagine the South not playing a major role this time. And, to put it bluntly, it does not seem to be in the DNA of most country-Western conservatives to choose a smooth-talking Massachusetts governor over a folksy Southerner. Something just doesn’t jive there, at a very basic, fundamental level.
Some way, some how, the Southern firewall will once again be a big deal in ‘08. A bigger deal than we can appreciate now. Whether that alone can propel Fred to victory remains to be seen, but it is an unappreciated point in his favor.
Tagged: fred thompson 
mitt romney rudy giuliani
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All of this ignores THE WAR. That is still the crucial issue. The latest poll I have seen shows 38% of Republican voters want us out of Iraq. That is up from 33%. The Republican Party is split on the war. This fact has not become apparent yet because none of the front-runners want to break with Bush on the war and face retribution from party loyalists. But the split is there nonetheless.
McCain’s poll numbers plummeted when he began his enthusiastic defense of the war. Giuliani’s support for the war has been considerably more low-key. But many Republican candidates are in serious trouble. Two open Senate seats will be difficult to hold: Hagel’s in Nebraska where Bob Kerry is likely to run. Warner’s in Va. where Mark Warner has to be the odds on favorite. John Sununu is in big, big trouble in NH now that Shaheen has said she will run against him. But Gordon Smith in Oregan, Coleman in Minnesota, and Voinovich in Ohio could also be in trouble because of the war.
Bush’s failure to shift course dramatically this month, as many were expecting, leaves Republicans in a real bind. How can they bring anti-war Republicans and independents back into the fold? If they split with Bush, they risk alienating the party base. But they can’t afford to lose the anti-war voters either.
These people need a candidate at the head of the ticket who has an exit strategy for Iraq. Such a strategy implies a split with Bush, but if handled properly might not involve an open break. After all, the new president won’t take office until 2009, so an exit strategy doesn’t necessarily imply a criticism of the surge. Yet it could still be a policy that differed only slightly in detail from the positions of the Democrat front-runners.
The candidate most likely to take that kind of chance in this campaign is Mitt Romney. In fact, Romney has hinted at it before. Such a strategy could bring a lot of candidates and county and state chairmen, worried about a Republican blood-bath in November, into the Romney fold.
Of course, it could also attract a lot of anti-war voters.
Meanwhile, Giuliani has been declining in the polls and even trails Fred Thompson in some of them. He has morphed slowly from being the 9/11 candidate into the “Mayor of New York” candidate, but this is growing stale also. At some point he has to put forward some kind of domestic program. But as his stand on the war becomes better known, he may have trouble holding his own with Hillary in the national polls.
Thompson is still untested on the national stage. From what I’ve heard his campaign style alternates between dryasdust and folksy. But I’ve also heard that he is not particularly good in give-and-take and question-and-answer formats.
He also has not been the consistent conservative that his early supporters thought he was and has changed his positions nearly as much as Giuliani and Romney. His ability to raise funds is also still a question mark.
That’s why I think Romney is the likely nominee. He’s a bit too slick and very much a flip-flopper. But his flip-flopping seems to be an asset in many respects. And if he shifts position of the war, he choose his time carefully. It has actually kept him off the defensive on key issues that are probably hurting Giuliani. He’s articulate. His campaign is probably the best organized, and he has the money to go the distance.
Of course, if Bush bombs Iran, as some people are saying he plans to do in the Spring, then all bets are off.
Rudy sucks, and so does fartin’ Fred.
Patrick, the poll numbers indicate Republican voters remain unsettled. I wonder if it is because it is just so danged EARLY yet by normal standards. The Democrats are all fired up, want Bush gone now (the fact that they hate Cheney even more is the only thing preventing a serious impeachment effort in the House, I believe), and can’t wait to get things moving for a replacement in 2008.
The Republican base might be torn between (however reluctant) loyalty to an incumbent Republican administration, distrust of the Democrat alternatives, and stubborn adherence to the traditional timetable. They just are not ready to make a decision about a nominee.
In addition, I believe the stresses of the war and the problems of the Bush administration, along with declining political success, are tearing apart the recent coalition. The death grip of the most fervent social conservatives is finally being broken as other pieces of the coalition shrink and fade or turn away from the party, and the socons no longer bring crucial numbers to clinch an otherwise shaky victory. Cranky white male gay-baiting war supporters who love lower taxes and complain about immigrants (instead of immigration policy) sure do not sound like a plurality in 2007 America.
When Republicans accept that Reagan is not coming again and get down to selecting delegates for the field before them, it will be interesting to see if they indulge in selecting the guy who best pushes their own personal buttons, or if they select based upon who they think would be electable. If enough voters believe 2008 will inevitably be a Democratic year, it would not be surprising if the primary votes are very much split among the field, on the theory that since we’re going to lose, I might as well vote my heart rather than my head. Huckabee could get some votes for his geniality if that happens.
Otherwise, the party faithful may begin to engage right after the holidays, and someone will jump to a big lead in a hurry. My guess is on Rudy or Fred if the electable test emerges, but Romney or McCain are possible if the troops conclude that the next four years will be spent in opposition.