But Bill Kristol observes: “You fight an election with the politicians you have.”

(Reagan) was a conservative first and a politician second, a National Review and Human Events reader first and an elected official second.

This is exceedingly unusual. The normal American president is a politician, with semicoherent ideological views, who sometimes becomes a vehicle for an ideological movement. …

This year’s GOP field is, in this sense, normal.

Sigh.

Kristol is witty, but I think his neocon perspective is wrong. Republicans electing non-ideological-conservatives, Nixons and Bushes, only results in more liberal policies, a larger federal government, and, finally, a Republican electoral debacle.

He is right in observing that, in this presidential election, and in recent American politics generally, no obvious unquestionably conservative leader has emerged in the nation and the Republican Party. We need to ask ourselves why. And we need to start producing them again, not settling for substitutes.

The future Republican nominee will obviously face an uphill battle in the 2008 Presidential Race, but strategist Karl Rove thinks we can win and yesterday described how the GOP contender should proceed depending on which democrat front-runner proves to be his adversary.

The Hill:

Karl Rove told a group of state Republican officials Wednesday that while the GOP primaries “are far from over,” each of the candidates can beat the top two Democrats — and the former White House aide then outlined a strategy how. …

In an address to a group of state GOP executive directors at the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) winter meeting, Rove outlined talking points for ways to defeat leading Democratic candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.). The former adviser to the president did not mention former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.).

On Clinton, Rove said the senator talks about fiscal responsibility but has introduced “$800 billion in new spending and the campaign is less than half over.”

Rove said that “the woman” wants to repeal all of Bush’s tax cuts, and that she can be targeted for voting against “troop funding” in the form of her votes against the Iraq war supplementals.

Specifically, Rove hit Clinton for what could have been her worst campaign moment last year, when she had trouble answering a question about driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants at the Democratic debate in Philadelphia.

“You know, Sen. Clinton [has] got a problem with giving straight answers in this campaign,” Rove said. “I thought that was an incredible moment. In the course of 15 minutes, I counted her giving about four different answers.”

The Bush confidant also trotted out one of the lines of attack the RNC has already been working feverishly against Clinton, questioning why she and former President Bill Clinton will not release records from their time in the White House. This, according to Rove, “raises legitimate questions about what she’s hiding.”

Rove made it clear that most Republican attacks on Obama would focus on his “accomplishments and experience.”

“He got elected three years ago, and he [has] spent almost the entire time running for president,” Rove said.

Rove added that Obama has only passed one piece of legislation during his time in the U.S. Senate, and during his time in Illinois state Senate, Obama had “an unusual habit” of voting “present” instead of yes or no.

Rove also said that nonpartisan ratings show that Obama is more liberal than Clinton, which he said is “pretty hard to do.”

Time and again, however, Rove returned to the trump card he used in his successfully executed 2002 and 2004 elections, saying that neither Obama nor Clinton is prepared to protect the country from terrorists.

Rove served notice that Obama and Clinton would be targeted over how they vote on any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation that comes before the Senate this year.

“Do they or do they not want our intelligence officials to be listening in on terrorists’ conversations in the Middle East who may … be plotting to hurt America?” Rove said.

He told the state officials that it would be their responsibility to find “creative and sustaining ways” to “talk about these contrasts.”

Rove also offered advice to whichever Republican candidate wins the GOP nomination.

He said the candidates had to first “create a sustaining narrative about themselves.” Then he said the candidate should “immediately engage” on the “kitchen table issues,” like healthcare, education, jobs and the economy.

Third, Rove said the GOP nominee has to show that he is serious about campaigning “aggressively in places where Republicans don’t usually campaign.” Rove said that includes among black, Latino, Asian and union voters.

“We’re going for everybody,” Rove said.

Lastly, Rove argued that the Republican candidate must show the electorate “that they understand the surge is working.” Rove said the candidate should get firmly behind the war effort, painting the Democratic nominee as “defeatist.”

“It’s an ill wind that blows no good.”

Democratic control of Congress, at least, has evidently upgraded the cafeteria service California-style, with an emphasis on locally-grown, fresh ingredients, eclectic cuisine, and… fresh sushi!

But at least one Republican is trying to make a little political hay over the change in cuisine.

NBC:

The presidential race is not the only place where change is an issue.

Members of Congress returning to the Capitol this week are being confronted by transformational happenings that have shaken the building to its foundations: Democrats have hired a new company to run cafeteria services. Naturally, this has caused an outbreak of partisan skirmishing.

“I like real food,” proclaimed Republican leader John Boehner when asked about the new menu by a producer for another cable news outfit. “Food that I can pronounce the name of.”

Boehner is now forced to wrap his lips around such phrases as “broccoli rabe and shaved persimmon,” “balsamic glazed butternut squash,” and “calico pinto beans”…all on this afternoon’s menu, along with the downright patriotic “American Regional Yankee Pot Roast,” which, even Boehner would have to admit, kind of rolls right off the tongue. On Fridays, there is a real sushi bar tended by a bona fide Japanese sushi chef. Gone are such grade-school cafeteria specialties as Salisbury steak and fried chicken, slathered in gravy and served with a side of chips. Debate rages among regulars about the merits of the new offerings. One consensus downside: the prices have gone upscale right along with the fare.

The company that Nancy Pelosi and her people have hired has a mandate to “Go Green,” complete with a mission statement posted outside the cafeteria on an eco-friendly LCD screen and a requirement to buy carbon offsets. Boehner doesn’t think much of that either.

“It reminds me of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, when we had indulgences,” says Boehner of the offsets.

The ever-witty Mark Steyn comments on the Republican Winter of our Discontent.

Confronted by Preacher Huckabee standing astride the Iowa caucuses, smirking, “Are you feelin’ Hucky, punk?”, many of my conservative pals are inclined to respond, “Shoot me now.”

But, if that seems a little dramatic, let’s try and rustle up an alternative.

In response to the evangelical tide from the west, New Hampshire primary voters have figured, “Any old crusty, cranky, craggy coot in a storm,” and re-embraced John McCain. After all, Granite State conservatism is not known for its religious fervor: it prefers small government, low taxes, minimal regulation, the freedom to be left alone by the state. So they’re voting for a guy who opposed the Bush tax cuts, and imposed on the nation the most explicit restriction in political speech in years. Better yet, after a freezing first week of January and the snowiest December in a century, New Hampshire conservatives are goo-goo for a fellow who also believes the scariest of global-warming scenarios and all the big-government solutions necessary to avert them.

Well, OK, maybe we can rustle up an alternative to the alternative.

Rudy Giuliani’s team is betting that, after a Huck/McCain seesaw through the early states, Florida voters by Jan. 29 will be ready to unite their party behind a less-divisive figure, if by “less divisive figure” you mean a pro-abortion gun-grabbing cross-dresser. …

Where I part company with Huck’s supporters is in believing he’s any kind of solution. He’s friendlier to the teachers’ unions than any other so-called “cultural conservative” – which is why in New Hampshire he’s the first Republican to be endorsed by the NEA. His health care pitch is Attack Of The Fifty Foot Nanny, beginning with his nationwide smoking ban. This is, as Jonah Goldberg put it, compassionate conservatism on steroids – big paternalistic government that can only enervate even further “our culture.”

So, Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that’s the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

Quinn Hilyer looks at John McCain, who has been garnering endorsements in new Hampshire recently, and shudders.

As truly horrific as it would be for the liberal and unethical Mike Huckabee to win the Republican presidential nomination, many Republicans still believe it would be almost as difficult to stomach the nomination of John McCain.

Huckabee, of course, would utterly destroy the old Reagan coalition, as even his campaign chief Ed Rollins has acknowledged. Huckabee’s bizarre propensity for letting criminals return early to freedom, combined with his utter cluelessness about foreign policy, also means that he would get absolutely crushed by the Democrats in a general election contest.

But McCain’s problems are almost as great, which is why reports of a comeback by the Arizona senator have so many conservatives scratching their heads.

McCain is, and looks, more than two years older than Ronald Reagan was when Reagan was elected president, and a poll last year showed that 42 percent of respondents said they would not vote for somebody who is 72 years old. That is a far higher percentage than that of people who would not vote for a Mormon (24 percent), a woman (11 percent), or a black person (5 percent).

McCain is not a tax cutter in a party that has made tax cuts one of its most basic tenets for nearly 30 years. Not only did he vote against President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 — cuts that clearly are responsible for the booming economy of the past four-plus years — but just last week he told National Review’s Rich Lowry that he was correct not to vote for those tax cuts.

CNN describes a revealing campaign moment, in which Mike Huckbee chose to deflect press criticism of his own tardy awareness of a breaking story by echoing democrat-style criticism of Bush Administration foreign policy.

Huckabee’s comments came in an interview with Iowa’s Quad City Times, in which a reporter asked him why, last month, he was at first unaware of a National Intelligence Estimate detailing the threat posed by Iran, despite the fact the report had been made public for several hours.

“That was released at 10 o’clock in the morning,” Huckabee said. “At 5:30 in the afternoon, somebody says, ‘Have you read the report?’ Maybe I should’ve said, ‘Have you read the report?’ President Bush didn’t read it for four years; I don’t know why I should read it in four hours.”

Romney said Tuesday the comments were in ‘bad taste,” and lifted from the “Democratic playbook.”

William Murchison has identified the candidate Republicans should be supporting in ’08, and always.

I’ve just now figured it out — the right conservative candidate for these confused and disturbing times. I’m voting for Barry Goldwater, and nothing can stop me. Save — I admit — the inconvenience of Barry’s residence in a venue other than the land of the living.

Still, I want to suggest to perplexed conservatives sorting through the credentials of Romney-Huckabee-Giuliani-Thompson-Paul-McCain that no one matches in substance and appeal the man who, in our hearts, we knew to be right: Barry himself. I want to suggest this not by way of whomping up some sentimental pilgrimage back to ye olden tyme. I suggest Barry as a model for the principled conservatism so many seem to seek vainly and despondently. Those Republicans, for instance, who can’t figure out what the Republican message is or should be.

“The Republican Party,” asserts Rich Lowry of National Review, “has run out of intellectual steam and good ideas.” That’s a preposterous state of affairs. Good ideas, as opposed to useful legislative enactments, never decline in potency.

Our guy Barry knew as much. Our guy — whom Lyndon Johnson imagined he had disposed of in ’64, only to find Barry’s ideas taking up more and more space in politics — knew clearly enough what he was about. Freedom was what he was about — “the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.”

Read the whole thing.

Nicholas Wapshott explains that other candidates made mistakes and the press helped him.

How did Mike Huckabee, a little known governor of Arkansas, find himself running neck and neck for the Republican nomination with Rudy Giuliani? How did the penniless Mr. Huckabee soar past the free spending Mitt Romney, estimated worth more than $200 million, in the early voting state of Iowa?

It is usually only paranoid conspiracy theorists who blame the press for causing the events they report, but in the case of the presidential race the insatiable need to find a new angle on an old story certainly helps the underdog. …

Quietly, while the big beasts of the Republican jungle were roaring and clawing at each other, the mild and modest Mr. Huckabee, like James Stewart as Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” was making steady progress. As a Southern Baptist, he had spotted what may turn out to be Mr. Romney’s fatal weakness: his Mormonism. By playing up his own role as a “Christian leader,” and invoking at every turn Jesus as his mentor, Mr. Huckabee silently slipped a stiletto into Mr. Romney’s ribs.

Although the Massachusetts governor’s appeal last week in College Station, Texas, for religious tolerance and more religion in public life showed that he could look and talk like a president, by addressing the issue of his faith he has only drawn attention to it, causing more voters to consider whether or not they really would be happy with a Mormon in the White House.

The most recent Iowa poll, for Newsweek, puts the Arkansas governor at 39%, ahead of Mr. Romney’s 17%. And in the latest national poll, for CNN, Mr. Huckabee is just two statistically insignificant points behind the leader, Mr. Giuliani.

Fortunately for the GOP, Iowa is far from decisive.

Gallup Poll:

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

Complete story.

Stands to reason, doesn’t it?

Hat tip to Michael Lawler.

Eric Earling responds to David Horsey’s cartoon with a perceptive analysis of the tensions within the GOP.

David Horsey’s latest takes a stab at understanding the latest twist in the horserace of the Republican nominating contest. Horsey’s simplification of Rudy Giuliani as the candidate of national security conservatives, Mitt Romney for “business conservatives,” and Mike Huckabee for social conservatives doesn’t quite hold true in reality but it makes for a nice cartoon.

My hunch, however, is that observers with little more than indirect experience with social conservatives may be a bit miffed in full at how Huckabee can be rising in Iowa and in the South given his well-documented problems with economic/small government conservatives. For one, Huckabee’s rise isn’t merely a product of social conservatives, it’s specifically a product of Evangelicals (as the links in the section on Huckabee at this post describe). That’s an important point to understand even in the context of politics around here and the local GOP.

To understand what that means, take a step back from Mike Huckabee for a minute. Consider someone like him, without the baggage of a Presidential race: current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. Since taking that gig earlier this year, Gerson has spent a good deal of time talking about the issues of the day in a manner quite similar to Huckabee (Gerson spent a full column praising him). As Ross Douthat notes in his broader critique of Gerson, many of those columns have served to make Gerson’s fellow conservatives more than a bit angry at him. More importantly, Douthat identifies one of the serious deviations from the conservative mainstream by many Evangelicals like Gerson (and thus Huckabee):

As the world understood the term conservative in, say, 1965, Gerson isn’t one. Like many Americans who’ve crowded into the GOP over the last four decades–blue-collar Catholics and Jewish neoconservatives as well as evangelicals–the militantly libertarian spirit of the midcentury Right is largely foreign to him. But on the road from Goldwater to Reagan, and thence to George W. Bush, the conservative movement transformed itself from a narrow claque into a broad church, embracing anyone and everyone who called themselves an enemy of liberalism, whether they were New York intellectuals or Orange County housewives. This “here comes everybody” quality has been the American Right’s great strength over the past three decades, and a Republican Party that aspires to govern America can ill afford to read the Gersons of the world–social conservatives with moderate-to-liberal sympathies on economics–out of its coalition.

Not only do many Evangelicals not truly embrace the more libertarian aspects of conservative thought, they outright disagree.

Read the whole thing.

Mark Steyn compares the Republican and democrat campaign fields.

As National Review’s Jonah Goldberg pointed out, the mainstream media are always demanding the GOP demonstrate its commitment to “big tent” Republicanism, and here we are with the biggest of big tents in history, and what credit do they get? You want an anti-war Republican? A pro-abortion Republican? An anti-gun Republican? A pro-illegal immigration Republican? You got ’em! Short of drafting Fidel Castro and Mullah Omar, it’s hard to see how the tent could get much bigger. As the new GOP bumper sticker says, “Celebrate Diversity.”

Over on the Democratic side, meanwhile, they’ve got a woman, a black, a Hispanic, a preening metrosexual with an angled nape – and they all think exactly the same. They remind me of “The Johnny Mathis Christmas Album,” which Columbia used to re-release every year in a different sleeve: same old songs, new cover.

A number of my conservative friends are selling out to Giuliani on the basis of supposed electability. Going outside the conservative fold in hope of electoral success has proven in the past to be a mistake, and would be a mistake again.

My own view is that Giuliani is a lot like Nixon, who, as everyone needs to remember, was an electable compromise who turned into a disaster for Republicans with respect to policy, and who produced a thoroughgoing political debacle as well.

Like Nixon, Giuliani is not conservative. He is merely a statist authoritarian. But Giuliani is even worse than Nixon. He has only very recently become strongly self-identified as Republican at all or made even the slightest pretension towards conservatism. Unlike Nixon, who was at least occasionally allied with Republican conservatives, Giuliani has been an outright enemy of the Republican Right who endorsed the ultra-liberal democrat Mario Cuomo in 1994 rather than support George Pataki (who was back then erroneously believed to be a serious conservative).

It is perfectly obvious that Giuliani’s recent conversions are entirely related to the personal opportunities they offer in 2008, and, were he to be elected, it is very doubtful any of those new commitments would endure as long after the election as the interval that they preceded it. Once in office, Giuliani would have new priorities far more important to him than Republicanism, Conservatism, or keeping faith with people foolish enough to elect him. He would immediately start taking steps to create a personal legacy and secure a second term.

Both goals would be more easily achieved by changing course and (like his non-conservative predecessor Richard Nixon) supporting the key top items on the liberal establishment’s agenda. So expect Rudolf to get right to work on the contemporary equivalent of enacting Affirmative Action, betraying Taiwan, passing the Endangered Species Act (giving the federal government an excuse to preclude private use of any piece of property), and implementing Wage and Price Controls. The more support he can get personally the better for him, so watch for a series of democrat appointments and a major sellout on court appointments.

Can we predict specifics of Rudy’s betrayals? Some of them I think we can.

Giuliani’s equivalent of Nixon’s Affirmative Action will be federalized Gay Marriage. His equivalent of the Endangered Species Act will be the adoption of the Kyoto Treaty and the creation of Carbon Credits. (Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins get very, very rich.) Giuliani’s Wage & Price Controls? Expect hizonner to raise taxes, to go after the Hedge Fund industry, and to revive Anti-Trust. Giuliani will continue from the White House his practice of building personal power by playing the role of class warrior and brutalizing more nouveau and vulnerable economic contestants on behalf of more established sections of the Financial Community. Doubtless, he will also find allies in the tech sector on whose behalf he can break up “monopolies.” With whom Giuliani will make a deal overseas is less clear right now. Perhaps he would preside over the reunification of Taipei with the Mainland and get his own opera.