OPINION:
Republicans will soon settle on a presidential nominee. That’s good - and bad.
The primaries have been exciting and have introduced the contenders to lots of voters. The winner will be known by everyone and so will his views.
GOP candidates have been featured in debate after debate and their viewership has been enormous. They’ve held center stage for months. Their triumphs and mistakes have been scrutinized, analyzed and widely repeated.
But the microscope is about to be replaced by a wide-angle lens. Pretty soon the public is not going to pay attention to the latest tiff between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Instead, only one Republican candidate will stand out and will be compared to Barack Obama and other presidents.
The prospective nominee will face a new and larger audience that will include not just rank-and-file Republicans but also Democrats and independents. A premium will be placed - in addition to being portrayed as the conservative contender - on being the most reasonable, likeable, commanding and persuasive person in the race.
The conventional way to describe this change is that the candidate will have to move away from his ideological base - for the GOP, that means moving away from the right - and tack toward the political center. That’s where swing voters and the path to success always are.
But that’s too tidy a prescription. Conservatism will inevitably distinguish the Republican nominee from the liberal Mr. Obama. And yes, independent voters will need to be courted - at least occasionally - with issues that die-hard primary voters would reject.
If history is guide, in fact, the Republican nominee will probably have to choose an issue that deliberately defies his conservative supporters in order to prove himself worthy of moderates. Call it the Sister Souljah moment.
But this is an unusual kind of presidential election and ideology may not be as important as credibility. Because the president is running for re-election and the economy has been so bad for so long, the vote in November will be a referendum on him, his administration and the state of the nation. The way voters feel about themselves and their futures will be as important as how they view the candidates themselves.
In other words, the election will come down to “change.” Do the American people want to change direction or are they confident that sticking with the same leader will produce a better result?
The primaries have not helped the GOP with that question. They have produced bad habits - especially the tendency of the candidates to drag their opponents through the mud - that need to be broken if the loyal opposition has a chance to take the White House.
When Mr. Gingrich calls Mr. Romney a liar or a “Massachusetts liberal,” Mr. Obama is the chief beneficiary. Democrats gain when Mr. Romney asserts that Mr. Gingrich is unethical or erratic.
The debates have made the GOP wannabes into celebrities, but they have also increased the negative view that the public has of them all. Among those running for president, only Mr. Obama - and none of the Republican candidates - have a favorable rating higher than their unfavorable standing in the polls.
Mr. Gingrich has said that the Republican contest will go right up to the convention this summer. For the sake of his party, he ought to hope that the race ends a lot sooner than that. The longer the candidates keep sniping at each other, the less opportunity the eventual nominee will have to repair the damage of the primary season and begin to rebuild his reputation for the fall.
The nominee will need to present himself as a legitimate substitute for the incumbent, a believable commander in chief. He will have to stand for a different vision for the federal government and convince people that he has the wit and wherewithal to move Congress in that direction.
He will no longer have to prove how conservative he is. He will not have to work too hard at moving toward the middle. But he will have to find at least a little time to restore his good name after one of the most bruising primary seasons in modern history.
The take-no-prisoners primaries have left bodies strewn all over the electoral battlefield. Such carnage doesn’t give voters the confidence they need to vote for a change in Washington. The Republican nominee will be chosen soon, but, in most ways, that can’t be soon enough.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum is a Washington Times columnist, a Fox News contributor and president of BGR Public Relations.
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