Democrats, giddy with success, and commentators on cable who are always in need of something to chatter about have been quick to label Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney as the current "faces" of the Republican Party. No wonder. It is these three who dare, at the height of President Obama's popularity, to criticize him and lament the country's new direction.
But if these notables are indeed the current "faces" of the Republican Party, they have received this distinction by default. Their loud and strident voices are being heard because the Republican officeholders still standing after the electoral debacles of 2006 and 2008 have essentially lost theirs. After experiencing such a licking, it's natural for sensible politicians to bide their time and give Obama a chance to succeed (or flop) before embarking on a recovery strategy.
At best, Gingrich, Limbaugh and Cheney are providing moral support to a party licking its wounds while laying the groundwork for the GOP's future political battles. Gingrich and Cheney are essentially political has-beens, and Limbaugh, though wildly popular with his radio audience, is too divisive for electoral politics. As the party gets over its shell shock and Democratic vulnerabilities surface, Republican leaders will emerge from the shadows. One of these will become the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and the party's next actual face.
There will certainly be no shortage of potential GOP candidates. Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Jindal and Crist, for instance, are the most likely, but more are bound to emerge, especially after the 2010 election.
For almost two decades, the "face" of the Republican Party was Ronald Reagan, the most popular president of the last half of the 20th Century. Even after he left office, GOP politicians paid homage to his name and promised to emulate him. After Sept. 11, George W. Bush supplanted Reagan for a time in the hearts of his Republican countrymen, but in the 2008 election cycle, Republican politicians ran away from him in droves and, wistfully recalling happier days, again extolled Reagan's name.
Republican wannabes can no longer succeed by presenting themselves as Reagan's heirs. A Republican presidential candidate will win in 2012 only if he or she is successful in delivering a message of progress that the entire country, not just the narrow Republican primary base, can espouse.
The Republican Party, over the next four years, will have many voices, but not a recognized and universally accepted leader. This is not unusual, nor is it a sign of perpetual defeat. Republicans went through a similar identity crisis after the Goldwater debacle, and Democrats experienced their own banishment in the wilderness during the Reagan Revolution. The ebb and flow of the American political system makes it a certainty that the Republican Party will eventually find its voice, and that voice will be manifested in the selection of its next real voice, its 2012 nominee.