I don’t know about you, but to me, it seems like sometime in the last couple of weeks, it seems like someone flipped a switch and the 2008 Presidential primary has begun! Here in California, 
Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama and GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani are both making multi-day swings. Of course the other front-runners – Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Mitt Romney – have all been out campaigning in the Golden State, and all have plans to return here again soon. Of course, with the high likelihood of Californian’s Presidential primary moving up to next February (the bill has already passed the State Senate on the fast-track and is now awaiting action in the Assembly), these visits will increase even more as all of theses candidates will need to visit not only to raise money from our donor-rich state, but suddenly our delegates become more meaningful in the quest for each Party’s respective nomination.
Looking at the GOP Presidential primary, it will be interesting to see which of the candidates ultimately benefit from the early California primary. Conventional wisdom would be that the candidates most advantaged would be Senator John McCain, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Both enjoy higher name identification, which is important in a big state like ours. Of course, the other ‘top tier’ GOPer, Mitt Romney, while relatively unknown to California Republican voters, has a very healthy fundraising machine and would likely commit upwards of ten or twenty million dollars to secure delegates here (under new rules, California delegates are award by Congressional District, instead of statewide, leading to the likelihood that our delegation will be somewhat split). The big losers of this super-charged first Tuesday in February are those aspirants for the GOP nomination who don’t have massive fundraising operations — candidates like Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, retired Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and several House candidates — Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, and our own Californian, Duncan Hunter (it would also include potential candidates such as Newt Gingrich). With the exception of Congressman Duncan Hunter’s name ID in his own San Diego County, none of these ‘2nd Tier’ candidates have any appreciable name ID, and will not have the funds to pay for the advertising necessary to create it.
Which really then makes you wonder where conservative Republican primary voters will go — given that all three GOP frontrunners have issues that, under other circumstances, would be extremely harmful to their nomination hopes.
Or put another way, on this Valentine’s Day, do any of the three front runners have what it will take to win over the hearts of conservative Republican voters?
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani clearly has an amazing presence, and gravitas that comes from having stepped up to lead New York City during the tragedy of 9-11, and the weeks that followed. He is well known and well respected for his leadership during that crisis. That said, we’re talking about a self-admitted moderate GOPer who, in his third marriage, split from his last wife in a high-profile manner that was chronicled in People Magazine — he is pro-choice, supports civil unions, and embraces an amnesty/guest worker program for criminal aliens.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is an amazingly charismatic leader. I still recall hearing him speak during the various awards ceremonies I attended during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City (Romney rather famously came in and turned around those games turning them into a huge success). His personal success in business has made him extraordinarily wealthy, and just hearing him speak gives you the feeling that this man will personally lift America to new heights. That having been said, conservatives can be concerned that while Mitt Romney "2.0" seems to be solid on all of the core issues of importance to conservatives, this is because he has had a pretty amazingly large shift in public positions on a lot of issues (he used to be pro-abortion, pro-gun control, and would not sign a pledge to not raise taxes — positions on which he has now taken a 180 degree turn). Conservatives will have to try to gauge the sincerity of his relatively new-found conservatism.
Senator John McCain is a genuine war hero, and has a reputation in the United States Senate as a leading opponent of pork barrel spending. He alone of the candidates brings extensive Washington, D.C., experience to the table. But there is a long list of reasons why conservatives might be wary of the Senior Senator from Arizona. His opposition to making permanent the Bush tax cuts, his past support of gun control, support for the Bush/Kennedy amnesty bill and his Schwarzegger-esque positions on the environment all raise eyebrows. But of course the grand-daddy of all transgressions by the Senator, from the perspective of GOP activists, has been his long time quest to reign in free speech rights were donations to political campaigns are concerned. There is also an issue of his age.
So what remains to be seen is exactly what conservative leaders, and conservative voters will do when facing the choice between these three candidates, who all, in some way, are an uncomfortable fit — there are certainly no Ronald Reagans in this bunch. That said, the mere specter of a "President Hillary Clinton" or a "President Barack Obama" is enough to send any GOPer, conservative or moderate, into seizures.
We’re already seeing conservatives stepping up for these three front-runners, and over the course of the next year, we’ll be working hard to keep you up to speed on what California’s more prominent conservatives decide to do in this race. To a certain extent, there is a lot of star power at work. After last Summer’s State GOP convention when then-Governor Romney spoke, everyone was ‘high’ on Mitt. Last weekend’s convention experience with Rudy Giuliani had a lot of conservatives excited to support him.
So the question remains on this Valentine’s Day — is there someone in this race for conservatives to love?
As for me, I guess there are advantages to my new role as Vice Chairman, South, of the California Republican Party — I cannot officially endorse any of the GOP candidates for President. But you can be sure that I will continue to follow this campaign, and keep you in the loop as to what is going on….
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