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Sunday, December 3, 2006
A tightening race? Too, too soon to tell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As evidence that the Republican presidential nomination race is wide open at this early stage, a South Carolina Republican we know told us the other day that he’d just received a call from Rep. Duncan Hunter, who was in the state to make a speech in Charleston.
When a San Diego congressman most South Carolina Republicans have never heard of is testing the waters and calling up pols in an early primary state, it does argue that a lot still has to be thrashed out before the ’08 nomination race reaches any clarity.
Still, we long for clarity. Republican strategist and former Newt Gingrich message-shaper Rich Galen was quoted last week as saying the Republican race has become a two-way contest between Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. McCain has had “frontrunner” branded on his brow for some time now, but the week before last, Mitt Romney wasn’t even the frontrunner among Republicans from the Northeast.
Romney has been making big strides lately, notably in the South. He’s signed on Sally Bradshaw, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s chief of staff, and South Carolina GOP strategist Warren Tompkins. The list of Georgians who joined his finance team last week looks like the host committee for a Bush fundraiser at the Reynolds Plantation.
In the chess game of money and influence that the nomination process has become, these early conversions trump any poll numbers that show former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the head of the GOP pack. And coming on the heels of Sen. George Allen’s defeat in the Virginia Senate race and Sen. Bill Frist’s announcement that he won’t be making a presidential bid after all, Romney’s big moves in the South seem particularly well timed.
It’s tough to scare off the competition, however, when you’re a Mormon governor of Massachusetts attempting to position yourself as the choice of Southern conservatives, and the primaries are more than a year away. So chances are when the Republican presidential candidates have their first South Carolina debate in Columbia next May, McCain and Romney will have plenty of company on stage.
The two-way race for the Democratic nomination was supposed to be between Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and former Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, who bears some comparison with Romney, when you think about it. But that ray of clarity shattered when Warner dropped out of the race in October.
Since then, state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) said last week, “I’ve been just lost. I haven’t even gotten off the ground yet.” But Reed also said he was tremendously impressed with Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who’ll be making the South Carolina leg of his announcement tour Monday, and has been hearing good things about Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.
Former U.S. Rep. Buddy Darden and former state Sen. Sam Zamarippa are working for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Darden served with in the House before the Republican avalanche of ’94, and Zamarippa is evidence of the appeal Richardson has to Hispanics, perhaps not a huge factor in Georgia but one that could make a difference nationally.
This former two-way race appears headed toward a free-for-all, or you could say, a free-for-all and Hillary.
