Even Ken Mehlman had to admit the GOP is in trouble. As enthusiastic as Democrats are for our candidates, the GOPers are in retreat. It won't get better after they pick a nominee. A lot of Republicans hate every one of their presidential candidates for one reason or another:
Iowans are voting with their feet. While both parties have wide-open nomination contests, crowds for the Democratic candidates in recent days are unmistakably larger and more enthusiastic than those turning out for the GOP contenders.Anemic. Thinks about this one fact: The Republican who raised the most money in the last quarter of 2007 -- and money was always one of the GOP's strongest suits -- was Ron Paul.
Around the country, people are voting with their wallets. Early reports on the close of 2007 fundraising put a yearlong financial disparity between the parties on glaring display.
Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, aides said, both raised more than $100 million in 2007, sums that GOP sources say are at least $40 million greater than those of GOP financial leaders Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
The anemic state of Republicans will likely become more glaring still on caucus voting Thursday evening.
Have to admit, it's fun to read this in The Politico. There's more of this after the break:
It's one thing for Democrats to despised the GOP candidates (and we do). But the most intense loathing of the GOP candidates is coming from other GOPers:
It also highlights a problem that Democrats do not have — significant ideological fissures that may make it hard to reunite the party once a nominee is chosen. Iowa’s top Republican contenders — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Romney, a former Massachusetts governor — reflect different strands of conservatism.
Many anti-tax economic conservatives loathe Huckabee, who has surged here on the strength of evangelicals who like his social conservatism.
Negative ads, many of them bought by Romney, have flooded the Republican side. Democrats, while taking veiled or not-so-veiled shots at each other in public comments, have not taken aim at each other in paid advertising.
