Below The Beltway

In today’s Washington Post, E.J. Dionne writes about the upcoming battle for the soul of the Republican Party that is destined to occur prior to, and likely as a part of, the 2008 Presidential Race:

As it looks beyond the elections of 2006, a Republican Party known for ideological solidarity is on the cusp of a far more searching philosophical battle than are the Democrats, historically accustomed to bruising fights over the finer points of political theory.

The coming Republican brawl reflects the fact that President Bush will leave office with no obvious heir, and Bushism as a political philosophy has yet to establish itself in the way that Reaganism did.

Moreover, the four top candidates in most polls for the GOP’s 2008 presidential nomination — Sen. John McCain, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and former House speaker Newt Gingrich — all promise very different styles of leadership.

In addition to these four, of course, there are others, such as Virginia Senator George Allen who is likely to pick up the banner of the Reagan conservatives and carry it into the 2008, assuming he wins in 2006, of course. The lack of a true Bush heir, though, is what makes this battle inevitable:

But when someone with as complex a relationship with Bush as McCain has emerges as the candidate of continuity, it suggests the limits of the president’s imprint on his party.

Giuliani has strongly backed Bush in the war on terrorism. But as a past supporter of abortion rights and gay rights, Giuliani would be the most socially liberal candidate to have a fighting chance in the GOP primaries in decades. Contrast that with Bush’s strong ties to religious conservatives. Gingrich has made clear that he would run against Washington, which at the moment is Bush’s Washington. “Neither party currently is where the country is,” the former Georgia congressman has said, hardly an endorsement of the status quo.

And Romney, his party’s most interesting new voice, could be expected to run in part as a problem-solver who worked with Democrats in Massachusetts for a bipartisan approach to health care. This would mean arguing for a break from the bitter partisanship of the Bush Era.

Given the public mood, which may change before 2008 of course, the one person with the message that may resonate most with the public is Newt Gingrich. The Republican Party has never done well at picking Washington outsiders as its party leaders. Other than Reagan and Bush II, ironically the only Republican Presidents since Nixon to be re-elected to a second term, the nominee has almost always been an insider, and that has usually ended in disaster.

Further thoughts at TheQandO Blog