What's Wrong With the Republicans?

June 25, 2007 — -- Out of power on the Hill and unpopular at the White House, Republicans hope their presidential hopefuls will lead them out of the wilderness.

"We are going to kind of have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and once again re-establish who we are as a party," said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But Giuliani himself is taking some hits. His South Carolina campaign chairman was just indicted for dealing cocaine.

Later today former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Todd Whitman will challenge decisions Giuliani made about the health of workers cleaning up after Sept. 11.

Arizona Sen. John McCain's campaign elevator keeps going down, at least in part because of his ardent support for the controversial immigration reform bill.

McCain is also one of three candidates who's campaign staffers questioned the legitimacy of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's religion, Mormonism.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator Sam Brownback apologized personally to their fellow Republican.

But according to Romney spokesman Kevin Madden, McCain has not joined Brownback and Giuliani in personally apologizing to Romney for his campaign's actions.

Romney has issues, too, with one of his top aides being investigated for impersonating a state trooper.

For the first time, polling shows Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., beating all four Republican front-runners in hypothetical matchups.

"The Republican party is in clearly in some trouble," said Republican strategist Rich Gallen. "But that doesn't mean it's going to stay in trouble."

The biggest challenge for Republicans in 2008 may be voters' desire for a change, especially because of the ongoing war in Iraq and the president's unpopularity.

Ann Coulter, conservative pundit and author of the book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," said Democrats do start with an advantage because Bush has been in power for eight years.

"I do get the sense now that people are reaching across the divide because we're all waiting for this nincompoop to be gone," Coulter said today on"Good Morning America," referring to President Bush.

But Coulter doesn't believe the war should be a negative for the president. In fact, she compared Bush to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the country through World War II.

"That's the one thing I think Bush has done well. I think he's been magnificent onthe war, and his domestic policy has been an embarrassment," Coulter said. "Theimmigration bill is causing problems not just among his base, but among Republicans and Democrats."

Coulter does think that Giuliani is ultimately too liberal to be a viable Republican candidate.

"It has been at least a couple of years since Rudy Giuliani has appeared on 'Saturday Night Live' in drag, so that's good," Coulter quipped. "He has only one ex-wife who has appeared in the 'Vagina Monologues' so those are the pros. We'll see what happens."

Coulter said her favorite candidate among the Republican field is California Rep. Duncan Hunter, a staunch anti-abortion Vietnam veteran who is a proponent of building a wall along the southern border of the United States to keep out immigrants.

Coulter said that Republicans should play up their anti-abortion credentials, and that Democrats will continue to lose if they make abortion one of their big issues.

"This is a winning issue for us, protecting little babies," she said.