Opinion: Choosing a path

This weekend’s Iowa Republican straw vote signals that the preliminaries are almost over for the 2008 presidential nomination process. And the question is whether Republican candidates have forgotten what comes afterward — a general election. Ever since the race began taking form last winter, the awkwardly large number of real and pretend aspirants to succeed George W. Bush as the standard-bearer for the GOP have behaved as if they were vying for the endorsement of Bush and Dick Cheney. An endorsement is not likely to be forthcoming, and it’s questionable how much it would be worth, given the historically low approval ratings those two share. But the rhetoric of most of the 2008 hopefuls, as they campaigned last week in Iowa, suggested a full embrace of Bush-Cheney orthodoxy, not only on terrorism and Iraq but even on the threat to veto a bipartisan Senate bill on children’s health insurance.

By: David Broder, The Daily Republic