The Voters' Revenge

(5 of 5)

GOP Soul-Searching
Romney should have seen both losses coming. No matter how little money or press Huckabee received, he was tailored from the get-go to appeal to Iowa caucuses. They like down-to-earth, Bible-reading, unflashy dark horses: just ask Jimmy Carter. Huckabee's populism and gift for campaigning made him an irresistible choice for Iowa Republicans, and he brought remarkable numbers of Evangelicals out to vote. And when the crotchety, conservative New Hampshire Union Leader joined the elbow-patch-liberal Concord Monitor in endorsing McCain, Romney was on notice that his mansion on a New Hampshire lakefront wouldn't be enough to stop the state's real favorite transplant.

The will to prognosticate is the dark addiction of the pundit class. No matter how wrong they got Iowa and New Hampshire, Republicans were soon buzzing over phone lines and trading emails about the road ahead. McCain and Huckabee are chasing Romney into Michigan, hoping to land a knockout punch in the state where Romney's father was once governor. Four days past that comes South Carolina, where McCain's 2000 bid was rudely demolished. But there, as everywhere, the political landscape is changed in unpredictable ways. The state's solid G.O.P. machine has fragmented into factions only occasionally willing to cooperate. One belongs to Senator Lindsey Graham, a devoted McCain supporter. Another faction, which includes the much feared strategist Warren Tompkins, is in Romney's camp, while the widow and one son of the late mastermind Carroll Campbell have signed on with Huckabee. As a result, the Palmetto State may not play its customary role: cutting the G.O.P. field down to one with ruthless discipline and efficiency.

"So the race goes on to Florida, and guess who's sitting there like a bug on a stump? Rudy Giuliani," said Mit Spears, a Washington Republican in Romney's camp. Florida's Jan. 29 primary will test the former New York City mayor's unconventional strategy of hanging back until the race reaches the megastates, where his celebrity gives him extra leverage.

For now, the momentum has swung to McCain. Campaign insiders found their phones ringing merrily on Wednesday morning as donors hustled to hop on the latest bandwagon. "We're ready to schedule as many fund raisers in one week as we've had in the rest of the year put together," said Ryan Ballard, a national co-chair of McCain's money team. "I haven't had enough time to answer all the calls I'm getting — from Romney people, mostly, but even from Giuliani people looking over their shoulders and hedging their bets."

What makes Republican politics into three-dimensional chess is that no candidate seems to measure up to the cherished image of a foursquare Reagan Republican. The party is enduring a dark night of the soul, almost entirely self-inflicted. After the excesses of the recent Republican majority in Congress, the party no longer sees a fiscal conservative in the mirror, while the Bush Administration's chesty foreign policy and churchy personality have driven wedges between conservatives and neoconservatives, between Evangelicals and pragmatists. Trying to find a candidate to rally around is like asking a roomful of picky eaters to agree on a pizza.

What's more, signs of a passion gap emerged in Iowa, where the Democratic caucuses drew twice as many voters as Republican ones. Campaign events often had a very different feel — Democrats big and brassy and confident; Republican gatherings smaller and more dutiful. It was easy to find voters who said they had decided for Edwards or Obama but had great respect for Clinton and thought she'd make a fine President as well. Many Republican voters talked about a lesser of evils.

But the G.O.P. was practically buoyant compared with the gloom that reigned when Obama roared out of Iowa. Having spent years planning for an epic rematch against the Clintons, their favorite archvillains, Republicans suddenly saw a new and looming foe rumbling the ground as he approached. Obama's lack of political baggage and abundance of star power made the all-too-human qualities of the Republican field more apparent.

Never have so many Republicans been so pleased by Hillary Clinton's success. "Sweet baby Jesus, they saved our bacon," a veteran of the Reagan Administration exulted. "We're back in the game." But that relief may well be short-lived. This is going to last for a while, and in 48 states, voters are getting ready to play.

— reported by Ana Marie Cox, Michael Scherer, Jay Newton-Small, Amy Sullivan and Karen Tumulty/Iowa and James Carney, Gilbert Cruz, Michael Duffy and Mark Halperin/New Hampshire