A race to redefine

As candidates vie for the White House, their political parties are carving new identities for a new era

DES MOINES, IOWA -- With a year to go until Election Day, the Republican and Democratic parties are going through internal battles over their very identities, even as the races for their presidential nominations intensify. In many ways, the battles over how the parties will define themselves in the post-Bush era are nearly as significant a political fight as the presidential contest itself.

The continued strength of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who supports abortion rights and gay rights, is testing the question of whether social issues still drive Republican primary voters. Giuliani is talking about terrorism, cutting taxes, his record in managing New York City government -- but he has made no serious effort to shade his positions to appeal to the social conservatives who helped reshape the party over the past three decades and helped President Bush win the White House twice.

Should Giuliani win the nomination, he would give the party a different face from those who have been ascendant until now.

The challenge to orthodoxy is slightly less marked on the Democratic side, where the party has tilted from the left to the center over the past 20 years. Tough talk about Iran by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has put her at odds with much of her party, and her nomination would suggest the party is willing to embrace a relatively hawkish foreign policy even as it promises to end the war in Iraq.

It typically falls to the nominee to provide the ideological framework for his or her party. That appears to be especially so this time, reflecting how both parties are somewhat adrift after eight years under Bush.

"The Republican Party is waiting for a nominee to voice a post-Bush vision for the party," said Richard N. Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman.

Of the two parties, the Republicans seem to be at more of a turning point.

Even if Giuliani fails to win the nomination, the fact that so many Republicans were willing to consider a candidate who was openly for abortion rights and gay rights -- something that would have been unthinkable four years ago -- suggests just how much the definition of what it means to be a Republican is changing.

On the Democratic side, the thirst to retake the White House is easing some of the party's traditional internal divisions. "Ideological battles tend not to happen when parties believe they are going to win," said Joe Andrews, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Still, if Clinton should win the nomination, her campaign so far suggests that she would follow in her husband's footsteps by trying to bridge the divide between the party's liberals and centrists. A victory by former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, whose campaign is being run and highly influenced by many of the same advisers who managed Howard Dean's presidential campaign in 2004, would suggest the party is leaning more to the left.

For Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, it may be more a matter of tone than ideology. Obama has said he wants to transcend partisanship even as he appeals for support from a party whose base has been hungry for partisan battle. Bond and others have suggested that a victory by Obama could produce the most striking change in the identity of the Democratic Party.

"Obama is in a position to reposition his party not only in terms of issues, but in terms of offering a more general embracing appeal," Bond said.