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Remembering the Future, Part II -- The GOP
By Doug Patton
September 3, 2001

Dateline: January 2009

In 2008, both parties selected women as their presidential nominees, Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Vice President Elizabeth Dole for the Republicans. Mrs. Clinton chose former California Gov. Gray Davis as her running mate.

Elizabeth Dole had replaced the venerable Sen. Jesse Helms, R-NC, in 2002. That same year, Iowa Rep. Greg Ganske defeated Sen. Tom Harkin; and popular at-large Rep. John Thune, R-SD, crushed Sen. Tim Johnson's reelection hopes.

These two upsets put the Senate back in Republican hands, but an unexpected series of events further solidified GOP control that year.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., died of a heart attack on election night, 2002. Republican Gov. Judy Martz resigned from office. Lt. Gov. Karl Ohs became governor and appointed Martz to replace Baucus.

Shortly after his reelection, Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-NJ, was forced to resign following a conviction on bribery charges. New Jersey Gov. Bret Schundler raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle as he simultaneously pardoned Torricelli and appointed millionaire publisher and former GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes to fill the vacant Senate seat.

With Vice President Dick Cheney unable to endure another campaign, President Bush appealed to Sec. of State Colin Powell to become his running mate. When Powell declined, the president turned to Mrs. Dole to join him on the 2004 ticket.

Al Gore, again the Democrat's standard-bearer, had selected the strident, radical Sen. Barbara Boxer of California as his running mate in 2004. The Bush-Dole ticket defeated the Gore-Boxer ticket 53 to 47 percent.

As George W. Bush prepared to ride off into the Texas sunset, Vice President Elizabeth Dole sought the 2008 GOP nomination in a ten-candidate free-for-all. The list included two governors, two former governors, three senators, a former congressman and the attorney general of the United States.

The liberal positions of former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman quickly eliminated her from serious consideration. She withdrew after a fourth place finish in New Hampshire.

Conservatives had a surfeit of choices: Schundler, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Donors viewed Schundler and Huckabee as rising stars whose time had not yet come, and both withdrew after failing to raise the funds necessary to wage credible campaigns.

Ashcroft, always a favorite among social conservatives, won the South Carolina primary and finished second in Florida.

Jeb Bush had been reelected governor of Florida in 2002, defeating former Attorney General Janet Reno. His message across South Florida that year had consisted of two words: "Elian Gonzalez." Jeb won the 2008 presidential primary in his home state, with credible showings in three others, and he remained in the race until the GOP convention in August.

Julius Caesar Watts had been the lone black Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives for ten years. Passed over for the second spot on the ticket in both 2000 and 2004, and frustrated with the pace of the House, Watts left Congress after five terms to begin planning his own presidential campaign for 2008. He, too, did well among social conservatives, whose causes he had always championed, but he could not compete with the vice president's fundraising connections. His best showings were second-place finishes in the Iowa caucuses and the South Carolina primary.

Sen. Chuck Hagel ran as the foreign policy candidate. Though charismatic, handsome and something of a maverick, Hagel nonetheless could not be kept on message. He rambled through long, extemporaneous speeches that left his audiences yawning. The only primary he won was in his home state of Nebraska.

Elizabeth Dole patiently worked her way across the country, poised, scripted, smiling, never a hair out of place. With her 85-year-old husband -- the last presidential candidate from the greatest generation -- by her side, she spoke of building a bright future on the rock-solid values of the past. Many conservatives who had never quite trusted her before became convinced that she was the only candidate in the race who could beat Hillary Clinton.

Those same conservatives hoped that Mrs. Dole would choose Watts, Ashcroft, Schundler, or even Jeb Bush, as her running mate. But the vice president had other ideas.

On a cool summer evening, at a press conference in New York City a few days before the opening of the GOP convention, Elizabeth Dole prepared to announce the name of her running mate. She honestly had no idea of the political firestorm she was about to unleash.

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to federal, state and local candidates and elected officials. His work can be viewed weekly on GOPUSA.

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