1. Mitt Romney? The only thing his term as governor proved is that when the economy is booming in your state, you'll look pretty good, even if it's booming for reasons that have nothing to do with your policies. Romney is the right-wing Dukakis -- lucky enough to be someplace he had nothing to do with getting to. The difference, of course, is that when Dukakis ran for President he didn't proceed to repudiate most of what he'd said when he ran for governor. Romney has, and that story will be told if he gets the nomination, leaving his opponent looking more principled than he is. I would have said that nobody can look more unprincipled than Hillary, but Romney proved me wrong.

2. Rudy Giuliani? The man is a nobody without his 9/11 connection -- a mayor who cut crime when everybody else was cutting it, except that most other mayors didn't alienate a third of their population in the process. And, if he runs, it's going to be pointed out that he attempted to cash in on 9/11 by suggesting that the term limits law which was forcing him to stand down be ignored. Just what we need -- a President who, in a major crisis, tried to turn it to his personal political advantage. Add to that the commercials which a surprisingly large number of NYC firemen will be willing to make challenging the 9/11 image of Giuliani that he DOESN'T talk about. Oh, and the retelling of his open admission of adultery while in office (unlike Clinton, his wife did NOT forgive him), and he's toast, too.

3. Fred Thompson? Come on, people. There isn't anyone out there who has any idea what Fred Thompson really stands for, and you're not going to find out until Labor Day, 2008, either, because Thompson would be an idiot to take a position before Convention. Right now, he's just letting everyone see him as the embodiment of whatever they hope he is. Problem is, after Labor Day, he's going to have to take stands, and in the process he will alienate at least some of his Republican supporters without gaining much from independents. It is not enough to win a Presidential election to say "I'm an actor, just like Reagan."

If I'm a conservative Republican, there is no way in the world I'm not a McCain man. The man CAN win -- and the major arguments against him are arguments from the right. His immigration and election reform positions may differ from those on the right, but a) they're hardly major issues compared with his other beliefs and b) they skew towards the center -- check out the polls. They make him MORE electable, not less.

If I want my tax cuts preserved, he is pretty much my only hope. The Bush tax cuts were written to disappear after 2010 (otherwise the numbers looked even more intolerable than they actually are), and the only thing that will keep them alive is a Republican President and a Republican Congress. The only hope for a Republican Congress is for many Republicans to repudiate Bush on the Iraq War -- 2006 proved that. McCain gives them cover to do so, because HE continues to defend the war. Yet he might well win even so because, unlike Romney, his honesty and consistency cannot be impugned. Against a waffler like Hillary, he has a really good chance.

That so many conservatives refuse to accept this tells me that they remain idealists -- so certain that the world is as they want it to be that they refuse to recognize when it has moved on. They've forgotten that Bush won office not as a conservative but as a moderate, and held it only because the nation was at war. Sorry, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson speak for 25% of the electorate at most. You're going to hve to appeal beyond them to stay in power.

For myself, this is good. I want a Democrat deciding who the next Supreme Court judge is; I want tax cuts focused for the upper classes repealed; I want a justice department whose main priority isn't defending the historical privileges of white males; I want a labor department that isn't actively anti-union; and I want a Interior Department run by someone other than the extractive industries. McCain won't do anything major about any of these things; Hillary or whoever will. I don't much like any of the choices the Democats provide the nation, and neither, as far as I can tell, does most of the electorate. But the electorate has decided that the people who the Republicans NOW have in office have got to go.

So it will come down to "turn the rascals out," and we'll get a Democrat in 2009. Only one candidate has any chance of preventing that outcome, but thanks to you idealistic conservatives, I guess I'm going to get what I want.

With the exception of McCain, I agree with your assessment of the Republican candidates. My problem with McCain is that he's the ultimate lapdog. In 2000, Bush, Rove and company treated him like crap. Insinuated that he had a child by a black woman and questioned his emotional stability because of his time as a POW. In 2004, he was Bush's buddy. He endorsed the president's reelection hoping that he'd be the anointed one in 2008.

In 2000, he called the religious right an evil force whose intolerance hurt the Republicans and the country. That galvanized Falwell and Robertson to help sink his campaign. In 2006, he's sucking up to this "evil force" in order to get their endorsement.

McCain can't make it past the primaries without the vote of the conservative ideologues. Unfortunately, he can't get their endorsement without pissing off the moderates and he can't win the White House without the moderate voter.

Bottom line, McCain is toast.

More and more I think you're right, but if you are, then surely Giuliani is also toast, and if it's neither McCain or Giuliani, then who can possibly win? I keep thinking that if I were a power broker in the Republican Party, I'd be shaking in my shoes at the prospect of Hillary against Romney or Thompson. You would think SOMEBODY among the Republicans would be able to say "hey, folks, we're going to lose the tax cuts and have socialized medicine unless we figure out some way to get the religious right under control."

There is no "getting the religious right under control". The Republican party has used these people for the past 40 years. They have made empty promises to them that the party would convert the US federal government into a quasi-theocracy, all the while knowing that if they ever made good on any of these promises then the religious zealots would no longer need to vote for them. Aside from the carefully crafted wedge social issues, religious people have historically had little reason to advocate for the legal or economic policies of mainstream Republicans.

The leaders of the party have always had hidden disdain for these people, even as they gladhanded with them at their mega-churches. The welcome mat has finally begun to wear thin. The Republican party needs to re-invent itself if they intend to continue winning national elections. The churches will no longer drive hoardes of voters to the polls with specific instructions for how God wants them to vote. Many will simply remain at home. Many others will actually have to decide for themselves. Good luck to them.