In 1992, after President Bush had been defeated by Bill Clinton, and the Democrats controlled Congress, the mantle of national Republican leader naturally fell, by default, to the highest ranked Republican left in Washington. Senate Minority Bob Dole. Three years later, he was basically pushed aside by Speaker Newt Gingrich, even though Dole remained on the scene, running for President in 1996. By the time Gingrich resigned in late 1998 after suffering losses in the midterm elections that year and due to the backlash over his politically motivated impeachment of Bill Clinton, Governor George W. Bush was already running for President and essentially assumed the mantle of national Republican leader. And you know the rest.
Right now, in late 2008, we are basically back to the same situation Republicans faced in 1992. Republicans are out of power everywhere. By default, you can say that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the national Republican leader, since he is the highest ranking Republican left in the federal government, like Dole was in 1992. But does anyone think McConnell is a leader of the future for the GOP? The man freaks me out every time I look at him. His eyes look like they are going to bug out at the next sneeze.
So if you were picking a Republican to be the national face of the party to lead the loyal opposition in the coming years, who the hell would it be? Because, for the life of me, I see no one on their side that I fear. Sarah Palin? Hahahahaha. Mittens? Maybe, but the fundie base hates him with a passion of a thousand suns. Huckabee?
The leader will have to be acceptable to all the disparate factions of the GOP, who seem more divided and mutually exclusive than ever. Indeed, I highly doubt the Reagan/Gingrich coalition of pro-business “fiscal conservatives,” the Fundies, the small government libertarians, the Neocons and the Paleocons can ever be put back together. Indeed, I see the GOP being in the place the Democrats were in 1968 after they signed away the South with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. In 2008, the Republicans have signed away the whole Northeast and West with the hatemongering they have engaged in over the past two decades. Their base is in the South, and the ideology of the uber-social conservative Republicans from the South are anathema to the rest of the country. Thus, that is no starting point for rebuilding a coalition.
What the GOP has to hope for his a complete failure by Obama, for that will make it easier to rebuild a winning coalition. Without that, the GOP is a regional party without an obvious national leader.