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Sunday, May 6, 2007
GOP fields capable lineup for ‘08 victory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For potential Republican presidential candidates who’ve chosen to be coy about future plans — Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich among them — the season’s first debate should signal a message: It’s soon or never.
The field of 10 who fielded questions that ranged from the inane to the argumentative established fairly convincingly that the talent already in the race is eminently capable of leading this country in war or peace. Some conservatives may have been hanging back awaiting the arrival of a more perfect candidate.
But these 10, while each has some quality, history or position that discomforts some segment of the Republican base, demonstrated en masse last week that they are serious men with convictions and a full grasp of the complexities of the issues and threats facing this country. Even a candidate who has not been on my preferred list, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, rekindled the fires with his stout defense of the cause in Iraq, his vow to go after pork in the federal budget and his ability, and willingness, to identify places to start cutting.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney handled himself and the questions well. Everything I’ve seen or read about him, from his fund-raising appearance in Atlanta to Thursday night’s first debate, reveals a candidate who’s likeable and who’s comfortable in his faith, mind and skin and who projects an ability to lead. While some Southern social conservatives are still wrestling with his Mormonism, it is not an issue with me. He’s currently pulling 10 percent to 12 percent in polls, but he’s a guy who can be president.
The other candidate who did surprisingly well was former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who repealed the car tax that Georgia House President Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter, a Romney supporter, is proposing to eliminate here. That feat places him among the proven tax-cutters in the race. He has the conservative track record and the manner of the politicians Southerners love. He’s likeable and smooth, certain of his beliefs, a guy who would be comfortable at the Rotary Club, the Atlanta Motor Speedway or the country church’s dinner on the grounds.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the front-runner in every poll, stumbled through the question about whether it’d be OK for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that interrupted political efforts at the state level to come to terms with abortion. That decision has extended a bitter national debate for 34 years, hardening positions to the extent that no Democratic presidential candidate can be pro-life and any pro-choice Republican will have problems in the primaries.
Giuliani’s response was equivocal. “It would be OK to repeal it. It would be OK also if a strict constructionist viewed it as a precedent,” he said.
If Giuliani is the nominee, he will badly need a Southerner on the ticket as a warm-up act. His record in New York City in dealing with unions and spending prior to Sept. 11 and his inspired leadership afterward do make him a candidate of considerable appeal in the South.
He does, however, have some liabilities here, one of which is that he comes across as very much the fast-talking New Yorker who has to leave a transcript behind so Southerners can be sure what he said.
Of the supposed front-runners — Giuliani, McCain and Romney — all would need a Southerner as vice president. The best of the lot would be former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, but there’s no chance. Given the left’s blind, vicious hatred of the president, no Bush can be on the ticket in 2008. Two other candidates, in addition to Gilmore of Virginia, are possibilities. One is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, one of that class of congressmen who took, and honored, a term-limit pledge in 1994. Another is Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, who continues to enjoy a high job-approval rating despite vetoing a $142 million tax rebate.
Any of the 10 is one I’d take into an election against the Democratic field. It’s as easy to imagine most any of these 10 making decisions for a nation at war as it is difficult to consider any Democratic contender at the trigger.
Sadly for America, no Democrat in this field would declare of terrorists, as John McCain did of Osama bin Laden, “we will bring him to justice, and I’ll follow him to the gates of hell.”
Both fields are good, fully representative of the America they see. The differences could not be more stark. Let’s vote.
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