Word: giulianis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...year ago, less even than it did three months ago. Polls point to the political equivalent of a total solar eclipse, with three different Republicans leading in three of the initial primary and caucus states: Mike Huckabee in Iowa, Mitt Romney in New Hampshire and Rudy Giuliani in Michigan. None of these men, at present, would beat Hillary Clinton in a general-election matchup, and each would fare little better against Barack Obama. "If somebody could run as None of the Above," says former McCain campaign chief John Weaver, "he would be the front-runner...
...McCain, already 71, would be the oldest President in history. Giuliani has so far tiptoed around the subjects of his ex-wives, his alienated children and questions about his business practices. Romney has been elected to office exactly once, has a record of changing his positions on an unusually wide range of issues, and just announced that he's a Mormon to a nation that might not otherwise have known or even cared. Though as smooth as corn syrup on the outside, preacherman Huckabee is low on cash, light on organization and may not be able to fill the pews...
...Even Giuliani, the national front-runner - a title that normally means something in a G.O.P. race but this year is the equivalent of "honorary chairman" - is slumping in polls. Republicans have no experience with chaos like this, except in history books. "It is without a doubt," says G.O.P. strategist Ralph Reed, "the most unpredictable roller-coaster ride we've seen in a Republican primary since the rise of the primary in the 1960s." Party-history buff Newt Gingrich went further: he called the G.O.P. contest the most wide-open race the party has held since 1940 - the year Wendell Willkie...
...that might favor them next year - immigration - the leading Republicans have had to scramble to realign themselves with voters in their base. Bush came into office in 2001 in favor of a pathway to citizenship for some illegals, only to discover that his party's right flank opposed it. Giuliani, McCain and Romney, all of whom to varying degrees once backed that approach, have recalibrated their positions so that they share the public's desire to secure the borders before granting aliens any legal rights to put down roots. The party's nativist temptation is already having an impact: almost...
...calls for an era of Reagan-like optimism aren't anachronistic. "Some have lifted a script from the past," he says, "without realizing the setting on the stage has changed." The intellectual fatigue guarantees that the Republicans will fall back on the one issue that unites them: the Democrats. Giuliani has led the charge here, repeatedly naming Hillary Clinton in debates as the real threat facing the nation. But Sanford warns that there are limits to this approach. Sounding the alarm about Democrats may not work, he says, because the electorate is "fairly ticked off at Republicans." But he adds...