Who will be the next Leader?

(Pictured: A billboard for the George W. Bush Party, ca. 2004.)

The real problem facing the Republicans in '08 is that sometime between '01-'03, they rebranded the GOP as the Cult of Bush. Now that Bush is leaving, they're basically having to recreate the identity of the entire party -- no easy task when the guy they annointed the Leader is horribly unpopular.

Even worse for them, the three guys who are vying to become the next Bush are all deeply problematic from the wingnut standpoint. As Trapper John pointed out at Kos,

Imagine, if you will, that the three front-runners for the Democratic nomination were: 1) Joe Lieberman; 2) a fundamentalist Christian governor of Utah, and; 3) an anti-choice former mayor of Colorado Springs who isn't just against gay marriage, but who actively and publicly dislikes gay people.

Ouch. That wouldn't be much fun. In fact, it might well sour the Dem base on the entire primary process. Fortunately, we have a much less offensive candidate pool. But Republicans looking at their real field of candidates must feel much the same as we would in the nightmare scenario above. Because each one of the top three candidates in the inaugural 2008 GOP Cattle Call has at least one trait that makes them anathema to large swaths of the Republican base.

What the base really wants is another Dubya, who, unlike Reagan, is disliked by everyone but them. It took Republicans 12 years to get over the departure of the Gipper and find another Leader. Might take them longer to recover from the W. hangover.