Michael Barone‘s latest Washington Examiner article explains that old rules might not apply as Republicans decide who will challenge President Barack Obama next year:
The first is the notion that Republican nomination always goes to the candidate next in line in seniority.
Yes, Republican primary voters and caucus goers are probably more inclined than Democrats to defer to seniority. But when you look back at the Republican nominating contests in the post-1968 era, and there are not many of them, you find that most of the nominations were close-run things.
Ronald Reagan came within a few convention votes of upsetting incumbent President Ford in 1976 and would probably have won if he had gotten 2,000 more votes in New Hampshire. Reagan’s victory in 1980 was contingent on a number of close calls, as readers of Craig Shirley’s “Rendezvous with Destiny” know. …
The next rule that needs to be debunked is that Republican candidates must pass a litmus test on cultural issues, especially abortion. This was true in 1988, 1996 and 2000, when religious conservatives were a newly energized political force and one stirred to action by Bill Clinton’s misconduct.
But Sept. 11 changed a lot of things, including this old rule. A pro-choice stand on abortion didn’t prevent Rudy Giuliani from leading Republican polls until November 2007, when his appointee as police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, was indicted. And going to all 99 counties swearing he was a right-to-lifer didn’t save Mitt Romney in the majority-religious conservative Iowa caucuses in January 2008. …
The third rule that may not be applicable this time is that you have to start early to win. Tell that to Bill Clinton, who announced his candidacy in October 1991, just four months before the Iowa caucuses. Many potential and putative Republican candidates this time seem to be biding their time. You may be able to ramp up a campaign pretty quickly in the Facebook era.
