Could Hillary Save The White House for G.O.P.?

GOP activists root for Clinton win

By: Jonathan Martin
Aug 26, 2007 08:23 AM EST

INDIANAPOLIS — He may be on his way out the door at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in coming days. But the party Karl Rove has labored to build over the past eight years seems to have picked up his talking points on next year’s presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee and that could be the GOP’s saving grace in an otherwise uphill battle.

Conversations with Republicans gathered here for the biennial Midwest Republican Leadership Conference reflect a party unenthused or just plain uncertain about their potential White House nominee. But GOP faithful also seem quite confident and even upbeat about the prospect that the senator from New York is, as Rove put it, the “prohibitive favorite to win the nomination.”

That likelihood, they say, is good news for any hopes of keeping the White House and getting other Republicans on the ballot elected.

Asked if Clinton being the nominee would improve his party’s chances both nationally and in Indiana, Howard County (Ind.) GOP Chair Craig Dunn got excited. “Absolutely, absolutely!” he exclaimed animatedly, grinning widely. “We’ve never elected a president of the United States who started off with 45 percent unfavorable ratings!”

But from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on down to county chairs like Dunn, Republicans also concede that they’re still licking their wounds from the losses that took place nearly 10 months ago.

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Daniels candidly replied Friday after a kickoff luncheon when asked if the party had recovered from its dismal midterm performance. As somebody who saw three Republican incumbent congressmen in his state go down in defeat last fall and who faces a potentially tough reelection battle of his own next year, Daniels would know.

But Daniels, the budget director in President Bush’s first term, said there is reason for hope.

Acknowledging that any two-term presidency “leads to a natural tendency to change,” Daniels said he’s nevertheless optimistic because of the “array of fresh faces” running for the GOP nomination. “This will not be a continuity candidacy. And I say this as somebody who has served in this administration and is loyal to it. A continuity candidacy, given the erosion in the party, wouldn’t have much of a chance.”

Although he got behind Sen. John McCain early and still supports the Arizonan (a longtime friend, Daniels repeatedly pointed out), the governor said he doesn’t know who the GOP nominee will be. “But our party is going to present a new face, a new program, a new look to America and it might just be one that is good enough to win.”

And Republicans here are hopeful that they’ll get to contrast that fresh look with a Democrat who they think Americans will reject as part of a checkered past and who can only boost their hopes to get otherwise dispirited GOP activists to come out and vote.

It’s why the focus on Clinton is so constant that it bordered on obsessive in both the official sessions and less-formal corridor conversations here.

In a multimedia presentation to the most diehard of GOP heartland activists, RNC Chair Mike Duncan played and replayed a video of Clinton talking about the economy in a manner he claimed smacked of “socialism.”

Duncan also offered barbs at Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, among other Democrats — but as with most of the Republicans here, the main target was clearly Clinton.

So when Duncan wrapped up his treatment of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, it was only Clinton that he admonished for being “one of only 22 senators to vote against [Supreme Court Chief Justice] John Roberts” and trying “to block” Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court nomination. And only she, as Duncan told it, “blasted the Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion.”

“It’s amazing,” Duncan concluded, “Hillary and her Democratic competitors have made their position clear — they’re running for MoveOn[.org] and not for America.”

The questions Duncan took from the audience reflect why Republicans so want to make Clinton the center of attention; talking about the current state of their own party is not nearly so much fun. Two of those who raised their hands wanted to know when the party will get on a unified message and one of them expressed fear that the immigration issue (which Duncan pointedly avoided during his presentation) will keep the GOP base home.

“My greatest fear is that they won’t turn out,” said the questioner. Another wanted to know just what Bush’s role will be in the election (to which Duncan said in three different ways that the focus will be on their nominee, not the outgoing president).

In an interview, an upbeat Duncan repeatedly came back to talking about the opposition instead of his own party. “We’ve got to get back to our basics,” Duncan said. “Low taxes, less government, strong national security.”

“When we get our candidate, we’ll be in good hands,” he predicted. And why? “Democrats are overplaying their hand.”

Back in the conference room, it was much the same message. “As Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee,” projected GOP pollster B.J. Martino of the Tarrance Group, pointing to charts and graphs, “Republican intensity will simultaneously spike.”

After a BBQ and fried chicken dinner at the famed speedway where former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney enjoyed lusty applause and even brought a few Republicans to their feet for offering his stock line that Clinton “couldn’t become elected president of France, let alone president of the United States,” Republicans said they liked what they heard but were still shopping for a candidate.

Asked which way she was leaning, one local Republican who didn’t want her name used hemmed and hawed before blurting out, “Anybody but Hillary!”

Todd Rokita, Indiana’s secretary of state and a Romney backer, emphasized, given his is role as the state’s election officer, that the election next year would be fair and accurate. But as somebody with further statewide ambitions, Rokita couldn’t entirely hide his delight at the prospect of a Clinton nomination. Hoosiers “have had enough of the Clintons and they don’t want a return to that,” he said.

But to Clinton’s camp, the lavishing of GOP attention on the former first lady is seen as nothing short of flattery.

Noting Clinton’s uptick in both national and state polls, spokesman Mo Elleithee said the GOP is “attacking her and making her center of attention because they see these trends”

“They’re starting to get a little nervous and are trying to stop her momentum right now,” Elleithee said. And he offered a reminder: Many Republicans also once gleefully looked forward to taking on Clinton when she first ran for the Senate in New York, too.