This article was published in Spanish in Foreign Policy en Español. Keep in mind that this was written for a Spanish audience that has a lesser understanding of the American political system.
It's not enough to be charismatic, have good ideas or make electrifying speeches, if you want to become President of the United States, you must be able to mobilize votes in the right states and this takes a combination of energizing your party's base and appealing to independents. A candidate's ability to energize his or her party's base is prominently on display during the primary process, which favors candidates who do so. Once the primary is over, the chosen candidate is forced to pivot towards the center and fight for independent voters, obviously this is more challenging for candidates who won by appealing to the very extreme end of their party. This is at the heart of what is both good and the bad about the United States primary process and the current Republican presidential primary is fantastic example of this paradox: their never-ending search for the perfect candidate is weakening the future prospects of the candidates already in the field, some of whom represent the party's very best chance at capturing the White House in 2012.
The rise of the Tea Party movement's influence within the Republican Party, which demands ideological purity from candidates, is much to blame for this indecision. Although there have been more headline-grabbing debate moments since, the most telling one came early in Iowa when Fox News' Bret Baier asked candidates if they would oppose a debt deal that offered $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. Every candidate raised his or her hand. This kind of ideological absoluteness will make it very hard for the eventual candidate to turn towards independents with more pragmatic proposals.
In fact, it´s been the women—Michelle Bachmann and the speculative Sarah Palin candidacy—that have arguably done the best job of appealing to Tea Party base. Bachmann's win in the conservative Iowa straw poll is a great indication of this support, but her candidacy has seemed to wither after Governor Rick Perry´s entry into the race, which effectively turned it into a two way fight between him and Romney. Palin has been campaigning like a presidential candidate, touring the country in a customized bus and making multiple trips to Iowa and New Hampshire always stopping short of making an announcement, until Wednesday night when she finally confirmed that she won't run. It seems that she is much more interested in media attention than being president.
Certainly more indicative of the overall mood among the party base have been audience reactions in these debates: cheering at the prospect of letting someone die because they lack health insurance; booing a service member in Iraq because he was gay; and hearty cheers for Governor Rick Perry's record of 234 executions in Texas. Republicans see themselves as rugged individualists, but these audience reactions showed a inhumane prevailing attitude. A heartless view of society that—in Obama's words—tells its citizens that they are “on their own”.
Rick Perry seemed like the perfect candidate—conservative, charismatic and a good fundraiser—until his three unsteady debate performances. Despite being tough on crime, Perry showed a weak spot for children of illegal immigrants. This lost him a lot of conservative credibility when he defended a Texas law that allows children of illegal immigrants to pay the less-expensive in-state tuition (for state residents) for university: “If you say that we should not educate children who come into our state for no other reason than that they’ve been brought their through no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.” Laws like this are also necessary to win the governorship in a state like Texas where you cannot without a big share of the Hispanic vote, something also needed to win the presidency.
So the search continues and the most recent great hope of the week, until his announcement on Tuesday that he will not jump into the race, was Chris Christie: a man who takes toughness to new heights and even has a website full of videos to prove just how nasty he can be to anyone who dares to challenge him. Despite his many refusals to run and his confession that he just doesn't want it badly enough (also captured on video), he was being pressured by Rupert Murdoch, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Nancy Reagan and conservative columnist William Kristol. Interestingly, his confrontational style belies his political positions which fall on the more moderate end of the spectrum with Mitt Romney and would have brought us right back to the conundrum of pleasing the Tea Party base and having the ability to appeal to independents.
The candidate who polls the strongest and is the one who Obama's own campaign fears the most is Mitt Romney and should he finally win the nomination, this never-ending search for “anyone but Romney” will only cast doubt on his candidacy. Indecision is also making it difficult for the declared candidates to raise funds since many donors would rather wait to through their weight behind a potential winner. Anyone who decides to get in now will face a major challenge in setting up their organizational and fund-raising machinery: the next debate is on October 11th and actual voting beginning perhaps as soon as the beginning of January.
Nicholle Wallace, former White House communications director under President George W. Bush, appeared recently on The Rachel Maddow Show and sees this ongoing search as “dangerous game” for the party's prospects of winning back the White House in a year where independents are up for grabs. In her comments, dysfunctional dating becomes a metaphor for what's happening: “I think that this entire dysfunctional dating that the party has done by continuing to disparage the guys who are on the field—running for president is excruciating and anyone that does it on either side is to be heralded for getting in the area—he [Christie] hasn't stepped in that arena yet and I think it will come back to bite the Republican party in the butt that they've continued to lust after all the guys who aren't interested in running. You know, it's like always lusting after the guy who isn't available emotionally or otherwise.”