NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

Republicans desperately seeking a challenger

By David Usborne
Independent·
10 Feb, 2011 04:30 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Conservative Republicans are in Washington to kick off the party's 2012 nomination process even as the champagne fizz of last year's mid-term election success gives way to anxiety about finding a credible candidate to challenge President Barack Obama.

The scratchy mood at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, will
stand in contrast to the celebrations of last November, when the Republican Party's takeover of the House of Representatives came in part thanks to the grassroots enthusiasm of its right flank, especially members of the Tea Party movement.

With up to 10,000 activists attending, the meeting will culminate with a straw poll on Sunday to pick a favourite from among 15 Republican hopefuls, nine of whom are scheduled to speak. The order of the day for each will be to highlight their conservative credentials, both financially and in social policy.

Polls are showing a slim majority of Americans believing Obama will be denied a second term. The CPAC confab should be brimming with anticipation. Yet less than a year before the Iowa caucuses, the field is fuzzy with no frontrunner and few fresh faces.

Many of the candidates, from Tea Partier Michele Bachmann to Mitt Romney, will be using the conference to try to drag themselves out of the pack. But key figures will be notable by their absence.

Among those who have chosen not to turn up is Jeb Bush, the former Governor of Florida, who has once again found himself the subject of an attempt to draft him into the race.

Bush has said that he has no intention of running, and to many sending yet another Bush to the White House may sound like desperation. But the National Journal, which is behind the latest draft-Jeb effort, thinks not.

Also absent will be Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey who some see as a new Republican star. (He has gone so far as to mention suicide as the only means of getting across to people that he is not intending to run.)

And there will be no sign of Jon Huntsman, Obama's just-resigned Ambassador to China who is reportedly flirting with a run. Crucially, the 2008 running mate, Sarah Palin, won't be there either.

A hidden but hardly secret tension lies at the heart of the party's considerations. On the one hand, the new strength of the Tea Party might give wind to candidates such as Palin or Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota. But the establishment is terrified the party might pick someone who will bomb in the election.

For now, the frontrunners in opinion polls are not Tea Party figures, but rather familiar faces from the 2008 nomination contest such as Mike Huckabee and Romney, respectively the former Governors of Alabama and Massachusetts. Most polls show one of these two leading the nomination pack.

Clouding everything is Palin, who refuses to say whether she intends to compete or not. She is not in Washington this week, nor has she begun all the usual rituals of buttering up donors in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

And yet, she could fill a stadium tomorrow while other possible runners might worry about empty seats in a village hall.

She was blasted this week by Rick Santorum, the former hard-right US senator from Pennsylvania who some see as competing for the nomination. Palin is skipping CPAC, she told a radio interviewer because she had other "business opportunities" to attend to.

"I have a feeling that she has some demands on her time, and a lot of them have financial benefit attached to them," he carped.

At CPAC, Romney will have to explain why as Governor of Massachusetts he signed healthcare reform into law that shares many of the features built into the Obama overhaul passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress last year.

Other top-billing speakers at the conference will be Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, both of whom are likely to run.

The difficulty of separating right-wing darlings from viable candidates was underscored by Grover Norquist, a doyen of the conservative movement and a sponsor of the conference

"When you're the party that's out of power, more than usual you are looking [for] someone who can win," he told the New York Times.

"There are a bunch of people who are hard core, but don't pass the laugh test at a national level."

- Independent

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from World

Premium
World

JFK assassination: Files reveal CIA secrets, but experts say there's more

World

'Truly historic': King Charles to host Donald Trump for second state visit

World

Supreme Court backs Trump's Education Dept cuts, 3 justices scathing in dissent


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

Premium
Premium
JFK assassination: Files reveal CIA secrets, but experts say there's more
World

JFK assassination: Files reveal CIA secrets, but experts say there's more

An agent oversaw a group that interacted with Oswald before the JFK assassination.

15 Jul 12:20 AM
'Truly historic': King Charles to host Donald Trump for second state visit
World

'Truly historic': King Charles to host Donald Trump for second state visit

15 Jul 12:03 AM
Supreme Court backs Trump's Education Dept cuts, 3 justices scathing in dissent
World

Supreme Court backs Trump's Education Dept cuts, 3 justices scathing in dissent

14 Jul 11:59 PM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP