WASHINGTON — For months, top Republicans running for president have been striking the same three notes: They champion small government, a strong military and, in most cases, traditional values.
That formula has propelled GOP victories for a generation. But increasingly, scholars and political strategists are casting doubt on its value in the 2008 race for the White House.
"It looks pretty much like the tattered playbook they've used in the past, and the idea of a bold new direction, I haven't seen any sign of it," said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.
Tonight, 10 Republican candidates for president will gather in Columbia, S.C., to debate on Fox News. If their opening debate this month in Simi Valley was any guide, they will talk little of change, relying instead on Reagan-era rhetoric on tax cuts, a muscular foreign policy and personal values in sync with religious conservatives.
Few doubt the merit of that approach in the fight for the Republican nomination.
But the party's White House contestants are also introducing themselves to the nation at large. And with polls showing the public overwhelmingly dissatisfied with America's direction, some GOP strategists worry that the reliance on a tried-and-true message could make what was already shaping up as a tough general-election race even harder.
"It seems to me that some fresh rhetoric and some more provocative proposals would be the order of the day, instead of shopworn cliches that, frankly, have been used for the last 30 years," said Don Sipple, a veteran of GOP politics. "We've got some big issues to deal with in this country."
Launching his White House bid in February, Republican Mitt Romney echoed Republicans of the 1980s. "The best ally of peace is a strong America," said the onetime Massachusetts governor. Americans "are overtaxed, and government is overfed." Values and morals "are under constant attack."
To Stu Spencer, one of Ronald Reagan's top campaign strategists, that timeworn framework -- used by nearly all of Romney's rivals for the nomination -- falls short of what he see as an appetite for change.
"The vast majority is looking for new ideas, new thoughts, new solution, and hope," Spencer said. "Politics is a gamble. You've got to roll the dice."
