Trotting Out the GOP Candidates
Jules Witcover

May 16, 2011

Now that it's the season for the Republican Party to reveal its lineup of 2012 presidential hopefuls, maybe each announcement of candidacy and debate among them should bear a political disclaimer: "Sponsored by the Democratic Party."

Nothing so distinguishes the GOP field so far as the manner of its members entering it. The latest is the declaration of availability via social media of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the man who has reinvented himself as many times as a chameleon in front of a kaleidoscope.

Yes, the same Newt Gingrich who achieved the resurrection of Bill Clinton in late 1995 by forcing a government closedown and reaping a political whirlwind upon himself, is throwing his badly crushed sombrero back into the ring.

His entry, on the heels of a pathetic turnout of low-voltage wannabes at the season's first televised debate in South Carolina, comes as a lame advertisement of Republican aspirations to send President Obama packing 18 months from now.

While other candidates may enter the GOP presidential sweepstakes toting an overnight bag of past indiscretions, Gingrich brings a bulging trunk of personal and ethical baggage that contributed to his ignominious resignation from the speakership more than a decade ago.

Yet the rest of the early Republican field is so lackluster and improbable that Gingrich enters the race at least as a candidate of recognized stature, compared let's say to that professional poseur, Donald Trump. Of the quintet who showed up for the debate in Greenville, only former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota is rated much of a chance to be elected. And his appearance was marked chiefly by his apology for once bucking the party's orthodoxy against a cap-and-trade energy policy.

The bombshell of the season, the finding and killing of Osama bin Laden, may wear off as a political boost for Obama by election time. But in that debate it certainly left the competing Republicans near speechless, except in acknowledging a job well done. Polls since then have shown Obama's approval rating reaching a majority for the first time in many months.

The president's calm disclosure of the news, and the absence of gloating in his subsequent narrative of the event on CBS News' "60 Minutes," provided a sharp contrast from George W. Bush's strutting "Mission Accomplished" show on that aircraft carrier in 2003, prematurely declaring the end of the combat mission in Iraq.

The developing Republican narrative on Obama during his two-plus years in office -- that he was a weak and indecisive leader in the conduct of foreign policy -- has been largely blunted by the Obama-orchestrated demise of the al-Qaida leader.

While not all the Republican presidential hopefuls are in the race yet, none of those mentioned as likely or possible entrants are causing any loss of sleep in the White House. It's a measure of the failure of known quantities such as former Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Sarah Palin of Alaska to generate much enthusiasm in the party as a whole.

A former governor of Utah, just-retired American Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, on the brink of entering, and sitting Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, pondering a possible candidacy, are being awaited with more curiosity than enthusiasm. And the one other wannabe who does generate excitement among the tea party movement, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, comes off as too hot to handle by the GOP establishment leadership.

Also, by backing down last week from the talk of cutting Medicare in Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's deficit-reduction plan, that leadership showed that it recognizes the huge political hazard in any such effort. In barely a week's time, Republican confidence across the board appears to have been badly shaken, and with no readily identified presidential standard-bearer yet in sight.

As Obama has told the story of the decision-making on going after bin Laden, it was a high-risk gamble. But the payoff was huge, politically as well as militarily, leaving the Republicans ponder the more difficult task ahead of them now to retake the White House next year.

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