GOP Horse With No Rider
Jules Witcover

June 1, 2011

For many years, the Grand Old Party had little trouble finding its presidential nominee. It either nominated the incumbent if he was a Republican or chose the next wannabe standing in line.

Thus, when George W. Bush finished his eight-year run, Sen. John McCain was there waiting to step in. In 1996, Bob Dole supporters even used the slogan, "It's his turn." When Ronald Reagan was through after eight years, the senior George Bush was in the wings awaiting his try. And in 1973, Spiro Agnew was ready and willing, though ultimately not able, to take over from Richard Nixon, until Watergate intervened.

The point of this history is that a combination of party discipline, candidate perseverance and a sort of political noblesse oblige usually existed and was honored by the latter-day disciples of Abe Lincoln. Patience was not its only reward; it often got a loyal Republican the party's nomination, or even put him in the White House.

Being first in the queue didn't guarantee election, as Dan Quayle for one found out in 2000. But he was hardly a grey-haired senior citizen when he made a futile bid for the party nomination. Generally speaking, though, it's been a good idea for an ambitious Republican to put in his time in the ranks.

Now comes the 2012 presidential election, with prospective GOP horses abandoning the track well before they've been properly harnessed for the first speed trials in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The latest to bolt from the stable was the Hoosier favorite, Gov. Mitch Daniels, who the bookies saw as possibly the best prospect to beat President Obama in a field of claiming-race nags.

The rest of the pack has been so dismal that as each hopeful has withdrawn in the face of low poll numbers, little cash or just plain disinterest, the party bettors have looked beyond them for some man, or woman, on a white horse to materialize as a possible winner.

Daniels was perhaps the last of those mirages, though the two fillies still trotting suspiciously around county-fair tracks, Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, may yet enter the early trials. But neither one, except in the eyes of the tea party faithful, has had the aura of a miracle worker that was gathering around Daniels until he burst the bubble himself.

Of the surviving field, only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich arguably could play the its-my-turn card. But his history of personal and political self-destruction and more recent intraparty cannibalism doesn't figure to generate much sense of entitlement among the faithful toward his claim of party service. Memories linger of how the Gingrich Revolution of the mid-1990s wound up.

The putative frontrunner, Mitt Romney, is not the sort of fresh face that Daniels could have provided. Romney ran and lost unimpressively in 2008, and now has been been thrashed in his own party as author of the model for the disparagingly labeled Obamacare.

In the desperate quest for some other masked man to come riding out of the sage to salvage the GOP from four more years of Barack Obama, the heretofore unimpressive former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota is getting a second look, mainly because he's still there. So is even more obscure former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, known principally as the American ambassador to China for the Democrat the whole bunch hopes to run out of the Oval Office.

Meanwhile, watching the forlorn process from the sidelines is Dick Cheney. By Republican tradition he would be the obvious man at "only" 70, after years of loyal party service as a congressional aide, congressional party leader, White House chief of staff, secretary of defense and vice president.

It was "his turn" long ago, but Cheney pointedly declared he would not seek the presidency when as next in line it was probably his for the asking, even with his history of heart disease. So the next GOP nomination is up for grabs with no obvious heir in sight, and the party doesn't seem at all optimistic about the plight. Even Jeb Bush, the popular brother of that political dynasty, seems unwilling to invite probable backlash from Bushed-out voters.

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