I 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 how 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? 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.