The GOP's Best Bet?

The GOP is in a deep hole and keeps digging. Even after Mike Huckabee won big among attendees at last week's "Values Voters Convention," many evangelicals have been telling the former Arkansas governor—and onetime Baptist minister—that they like him but won't back him because he can't beat Hillary Clinton. They have it exactly backward. He may be the only Republican candidate with a decent chance to beat the Democrats next November.

Huckabee? Yes, Huckabee.

To explain why, let's look at the shortcomings of the other Republican candidates first.

Rudy Giuliani's performance so far has turned the conventional wisdom about him on its head. It was assumed early on that he couldn't win the GOP nomination because of his position on social issues like abortion, gun control and gay rights, but that if he did his moderation would power him to victory in the general election. Now it looks as though he's got a strong chance for the nomination—despite his GOP rivals' best efforts to hammer him for being insufficiently conservative during Sunday night's debate—but would likely fail in November.

While Giuliani appears strong in his native Northeast, his recent pandering to the conservative base will make it hard for him to put states like New York and New Jersey in play. As Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania told Chris Matthews on "Hardball" last week, Giuliani's right-wing positions on Iraq, S-CHIP and the need for anti-abortion Supreme Court justices are all deeply unpopular in Blue States and would be hung around his neck next fall. Meanwhile, a pro-life third-party effort (a greater likelihood whenever Republicans nominate a pro-choice candidate for any major office) would strip away a few crucial points in key states. At a minimum, pro-lifers would stay home.

Most important, Giuliani is a dark candidate running on fear. Americans like light candidates running on hope. Since 1928 the United States has only once elected the darker candidate, Richard Nixon in 1968. But circumstances were quite different then. The unpopular war that year was a problem for the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey—whose "politics of joy" sounded lame in that crazy season. Nixon tried to lighten up in 1968 with the "new Nixon" (just as Giuliani is trying to smile more this year), but his victory and reelection in 1972 were triumphs of the dark side.