GOP Mess in Iowa: Romney Stalls, Giuliani's Flailing, Huckabee Scares the DC Establishment

Clad in an orange and grey hunting jacket and an orange cap, Mike Huckabee raised his 12-gauge shotgun, took aim and fired, bagging a pheasant for the benefit of watching reporters. As another shot flew over their heads, it became too much for one journalist who cried: "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Don't shoot. This is traumatizing." Huckabee the hunter had demonstrated himself a "regular guy," hoping to consolidate his lead in the Republican polls before Thursday's Iowa caucus, the first step to gaining the party's nomination for President.

His nearest rival, Mitt Romney, had shot himself in the foot by claiming to be an avid hunter, only to then confess he targeted mostly "small varmints." No such question marks over Huckabee, who said he not only hunted ducks, deer and antelopes but could eat varmint too. "I figured out you could put grease in a popcorn popper and heat that thing up and you could cook anything," he said of his student days. "So we fried squirrel."

There is growing unease among Republican organizers that the Grand Old Party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan could meet the same fate as Huckabee's squirrel. The presidential campaign has failed to produce a champion to take on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or whoever wins the Democratic nomination. Instead the struggle for the party's soul has exposed fissures in policy, disarray over what it now stands for and distractions both banal and bizarre, "redneck stew" included.

Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who does "not necessarily buy into traditional Darwinian theory," and is celebrated for losing more than 100lb in weight, appeals to Christian evangelicals but not fiscal conservatives. Romney, a Mormon forced to backtrack over a claim that he saw his father march with Martin Luther King, appeals to social, economic and foreign policy conservatives, but not those who regard his religion as a cult.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor praised for his leadership after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, for his part plays well with so-called "security moms" concerned about terrorism, but less well in the heartland because of his liberal views, three marriages and performance 10 years ago on Saturday Night Live as a granny in a floral dress. The resurgent Senator John McCain can trump varmint hunting with his Vietnam War record, but has refused to toe the party line on tax cuts and campaign finance reform.

And the one man none likes to mention as they burn up miles in Iowa is President George Bush.

The party is seen as divided, stale and saturated by religion. It has left jaded activists nostalgic for the certainties of the Reagan era and, after losing control of Congress in 2006, panicking about a meltdown in 2008.

Frank Luntz, pollster and political consultant, said there is no mistaking the mood in Iowa and New Hampshire, which holds its primary next week. "Every time the response is the same," he said. "The Democrats can't wait for election day, they are so excited about the prospects and the candidates. The Republicans are much more nervous and much more dissatisfied. There's some disillusionment with the fortunes of the party. There's tremendous fear about the Democrats taking it all, and a sense that they have neither the messenger nor the message."

The destiny the Republicans fear is that of the Conservatives in Britain in 1997: an unpopular leader overshadowed by a long-serving predecessor, a loss of direction and unity, a charismatic opponent promising change, and a hammering at the polls that spells years in the wilderness. The Republicans have plenty of candidates, but none has captured the imagination or threatened to dominate the landscape. Whereas the Democratic debates have shown an embarrassment of riches, including a woman and a black man with star quality, the Republicans have lined up mostly grey-haired men in suits and has lacked an ace. Whereas the Democratic race is thrilling -- Clinton, Obama and John Edwards are virtually neck-and-neck -- quantity rather than quality is the Republican byword.