Two days ago, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's once-mighty presidential campaign collapsed in Florida as he received an anemic 15 percent of the vote in his alleged firewall state. Though "America's Mayor" once enjoyed a relatively healthy national lead, his campaign's demise was less a fiery flameout than the sad deflation of a birthday balloon that everyone had forgotten was still floating around.
Such has been the experience of every Republican hopeful who has been cheered as the savior of the GOP and the new leader of the Reagan coalition this election cycle. Without a clear leader, the Republican coalition of social conservatives, economic conservatives and security hawks is in danger of collapsing.
Over the past year, every potential Republican presidential nominee has seen his candidacy torpedoed by some faction of the party's political base. While the GOP may sustain itself in the short term as the party of those who are against the Democratic nominee, Republicans will ultimately have to find a more expansive (and inclusive) definition if they expect their party to survive.
Last year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was seen as the frontrunner for the nomination in a party that prefers speedy coronations to intra-party squabbles. His campaign fell apart, however, amid money woes and the unanswered concerns of party faithful who had never really trusted the amnesty-loving, compromise-happy Arizonan who had been considered for the number two spot on a John Kerry ticket in 2004.
Into this gaping chasm rode Giuliani, the heroic former mayor of New York City. Embraced by the security hawks, he became beloved by the economic conservatives for his alleged penchant for tax cutting and his powerhouse stewardship of America's financial capital. But social conservatives never warmed to his pro-choice, pro-gay rights views, and his massive campaign beast was forced to wait in Florida until the others arrived, by which time it had simply starved.
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson's greatest moments all came before he announced his candidacy, and it soon became apparent that the man billed as the New Reagan was just as old, just as tired and just as confused as the last one. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee enthused evangelicals but worried economic conservatives with his tax-hiking record and caused anxiety for foreign-policy hawks when he offered "apologies" for the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
For a time, former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney seemed to make everybody happy, pledging to double the size of Gitmo and to create millions of jobs. When the hawks and the social conservatives tired of what they perceived as his constant flip-floppery, he found his edge against McCain as a pro-business conservative. In Florida, he attacked his rival by saying that America should have a president who "actually had a job in the real economy."
While this kind of red meat is fodder for the fiscal and business conservatives in the Republican Party, it is decidedly unimpressive to security-minded members who see Romney as a pandering pretty-boy who was serving as a missionary in France while McCain was having his arms broken in the "Hanoi Hilton."
So John McCain is back on top, and will most likely remain there for the time being. But unless the Republican Party can find a set of principles or a leader to unite it, the Reagan Coalition may be at its end.
