2008 Presidential Race - Republicans

I'm definitely having a hard time figuring out the race. We are so far away from a resolution that that's to be expected, but the field is pretty wide open. Fred Thompson's not even officially in the race, which shows how early things still are.

So who's going to get the nomination? If I have to pick somebody, I'd say Giuliani. He's not my favorite, but he seems most likely to get it. I think Republican primary voters know that 2008 isn't looking like the party's best year and they are willing to compromise some ideological purity for the sake of winning. While Giuliani has espoused some socially liberal views in the past (especially as mayor), my suspicion is that in his core he's a conservative. Plus, he'd pummel Hillary in the general election.

He certainly has his flaws, however. He'd do better in blue states than Bush has, but he'd also have some weakness in red states that could flip to Democrats due to conservatives staying home next November.

Fred Thompson's biggest weakness will be his late entry into the field. While these other guys have worked out the kinks in their campaigns from their experience so far, they just won't make many (and likely none) mistakes. Fred is pretty polished, but he's still going to have some growing pains. Plus, he doesn't have executive experience. I suspect that his gravitas (to use an overworked word) would be enough to overcome that in voters minds, though.

Romney knows he has to run a more historically conventional campaign due to his lower name recognition nationally. As a result, he's hammering Iowa hard to get a win there. He doesn't have to do much to win New Hampshire since he was governor in Massachusetts. He hopes to use positive news of winning those two states to bounce nationally. I don't know if it will work, but it's clearly the strategy he has to take. Also, the mainstream media has been absolutely killing him so far, so he'll be ready for anything they throw at him. That's solid (if unwanted) experience that the golden boy Obama (to pick an example) is not going to have to face for a while.

The rest if the guys don't have much of a chance. Huckabee's an interesting fella who works the mic like Ric Flair in his prime, but he's not much of an economic conservative. Ask Pat Buchanan how well that works. McCain's toast thanks to the immigration debacle. That's radioactive in the law-and-order party. The others have their strengths and weaknesses to varying degrees, but there's no reason to cover them.

So it looks like Rudy would get it today, but there's too much race left to be very confident in that.