Republican stampede to reach Oval Office

In less than a month the Republican presidential contenders will gather for their first debate in the key swing state of Ohio.

The nationally televised event will be watched by millions: someone on that stage is likely to be the party’s nominee for leader of the free world.

There is just one problem: the debate stage can fit only 10 people, and 17 Republicans are running for nomination. The excess has left debate organisers with no choice but to enforce a cutoff.

The top 10 candidates by poll numbers will be invited on stage with the rest relegated to a ‘‘B-list’’.

Such a setup means gadflies like Donald Trump, who are well known but have little chance of winning, will appear next to Jeb Bush, while governors and senators who have spent less time on cable news may not make the cut. Disastrously for a party trying to improve its standing with female voters, the only woman in the race – former Hewlett Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina – looks unlikely to win a spot.

The overcrowded debate stage is the most visible symbol of what some Republicans fear is an out-ofcontrol competition to select a candidate capable of defeating Hillary Clinton.

‘‘It may not be a circus yet but they’re setting up the tents and bringing in the elephants,’’ said Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant who knows several of the candidates.

Chief among the concerns of party leaders is that the cacophonous debate – where serious candidates’ fiscal policies will be discussed on the same stage as fringe contenders’ hardline abortion views – will tarnish the party’s brand.

Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the six most recent presidential elections, and party leaders are desperate to find a broad-appeal candidate who can win next November.

They fear a repeat of 2012, when Mitt Romney was savaged by his fellow Republicans during the primary and went into the presidential election haunted by hardline conservative stances he had taken to appease the party’s base.

The unruly Republican nomination is partly a reflection on Jeb Bush, who is seen as a vulnerable frontrunner.

While Hillary Clinton has scared off any high-profile Democrat rivals, Bush has failed to intimidate other Republicans into staying on the sidelines. Even Marco Rubio, a Florida senator whom Bush mentored as a young politician, has decided to challenge him.

‘‘I thought Jeb was just going to suck all the air out of the room, and it just hasn’t happened,’’ said John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, as he explained his decision to enter the race. But the large Republican field is about more than Bush. It is also the product of a series of Supreme Court rulings that mean billionaires can pour money behind a candidate of their choice, even if they have no real chance of winning.

In 2012, a casino mogul spent US$20 million (NZ$30m) to prop up the no-hope candidacy of Newt Gingrich. This election, Rick Santorum, a Right-wing former senator who is registering barely 2 per cent in the polls, has found a ‘‘sugar daddy’’ in Foster Friess, a mega-donor who has joked that his idea of contraception was women holding an aspirin between their knees to keep their legs closed.

Republican reformers put on a brave face and argue their party’s lively and freewheeling contest is preferable to a dull coronation for Hillary Clinton.

‘‘It’s a sign of the health of the party that so many serious candidates are running,’’ said Mike Shields, former chief of staff of the Republican National Committee.

But when the lights go up on the crowded Ohio stage next month Republican leaders may be holding their breath and bracing for disaster.