The GOP’s Wide-Open Race

At the Values Voters conference and Orlando debate, candidates make their moves.

By Byron York
National Review Online


We’ve just come through the most revealing three-day period in the Republican presidential race so far. Before Friday and Saturday, when all the candidates appeared at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, and Sunday, when they gathered for the Fox News debate in Orlando, we wondered whether Rudy Giuliani could survive an appearance before socially conservative voters; whether Fred Thompson could show the energy that primary voters demand in a candidate; whether John McCain could regain his place in the contest’s first tier; and whether Mike Huckabee could fully ascend to that top grouping. Now, we know the answers are “yes” on all counts. Those answers, along with the continued strength of Mitt Romney — despite doubts about his record among the voters to whom it means the most — mean that there are now five real contenders for the Republican nomination. It is the most wide-open race in a very long time.