Now, a cadre of relatively unknown and/or unpopular Republicans, including Newt Gingrich, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo, are vying to occupy the right and thus take the nomination.

In that field, Huckabee is the threat.  He's pretty talented politically but mostly unknown at the national level, which should give Democrats a chance to define him if they get started right away.  He's left the door open with that wedding registry snafu.

I agree.  Romney would struggle to get above the 40% mark nationally against almost anyone (except maybe Kerry) and would lose his home state by 30 points.  A Romney nomination is most likely a best case scenario for the Democrats.  Even Santorum would be a more formidible opponent because he would be difficult to defeat in any red states, although Santorum would probably lose his home state as well by about, oh, 19 points...

One governorship remained in GOP hands - California.

And only because Angelides was a piss-poor Democratic candidate, and because Ah-nold ran more to the left than is acceptable for ReThugs, but acceptable to Democrats wanting other alternatives besides Angelides.

is still on McCain. Falwell/Dobson/Perkins etc. know he's their best shot at keeping the WH, and that he'll need them to win both in '08 and a re-elect in '12. So they'll come behind him, just as Bush, Rove & Co. have already done.

The only real question is who will we nominate to defeat him?

I've said all along that the woman getting killed by the collapsing tunnel kills Romney's fairly low chance of winning ... after a GOP administration that gave us such deadly incompetence, a few ads based around that pretty much finishes Romney, imo. If he were stronger otherwise, it wouldn't be enough to kill him, but as it is ... goodnight.

Interesting, though, that the two states the GOP operatives are complaining about are somewhat Presidential swing states (one with a potential Democratic candidate), while Romney ignored safe red states ... was there any personal agenda there, hmmmm?

Romney in all of 20 seconds.

Just mentioned his flip flop on abortion and he was a Mormon.  

It took 30 seconds to talk them out of Rudy G.

My money is on Huckabee.

My money's on him, too, and I predict Jeb Bush as VP nominee.  I think they want to give him a chance to redeem the family name, unless they have enough money and control that they don't even care about their "legacy" anymore.

Romney will be a very formidable candidate if nominated. He is making it very clear to evangelical voters that he believes in Jesus Christ and that might be all that he needs to assure them with. He has plenty of money, he is very conservative, and his investment group just purchased clear channel, which could help his campaign. His father was the former gov. of Michigan which could help him in the general election. Say what you will about him but he has appeal and a chance to win. What did you think in 1998-1999 when the bumbling gov. of Texas was thinking about running for the Presidency?

One lesson I learned from a "Jack-mormon" Republican campaign consultant is, "don't fuck with the church."

Of my seven campaign losses (of 30), one that sticks in my ribs with particular poignancy was a special election race where a Mormon candidate roared out of what we thought was fourth place in a multi-candidate field to win.  Only at the end of the campaign did the incredible precinct-walking energy of his Mormon troops become visible.

One characteristic of Mormon political action is that they never introduce themselves as Mormons but rather, as "Dr. So-in-so, an opthamologist at your medical center," and "Mrs. So-in-so, who is the head of the home-and school club" and so forth.

These hard-working, prosperous, and clean-living people are fucking dangerous. Their numbers, always small, produce big dollars in fundraising and enormous energy and productivity in volunteerism.

The anti-choice Mormons are a big part of the shock troops the GOP count on for their 72 hour program and year-round activism.

That said, it is true that most other people, especially in the West, hate them. They are feared for their strange heresies--they believe the Book of Mormon has equal authority to the Bible and that Jesus was not the only prophet--their sanctimoniousness and proslytizing and their history of polygamy.The great 49-er quarterback Steve Young is only one of literally thousands of Youngs, all descended from the horny prophet Brigham.

Nevertheless Mitt's daddy, George Romney entered the 1968 Republican primaries a front-runner despite his heritage and was derailed by a gaffe, not religious prejudice. I do believe, however, that bias against Mormons made his lead more fragile than it otherwise would have been.

That said, I agree that Romney would be a comparatively weak candidate. For one thing, the younger Romney, like the younger Bush, ain't half the man his father was. George Romney was a man of parts, having led General Motors before entering politics.

Still, I promise you this: Get into a campaign, esp. at the local level, against a Mormon candidate and you're in for the fight of your life. If you value your won-loss record, "don't fuck with the church."

One thing to keep an eye on is the network of ex-Bain Capital/Bain and Company associates who throw in with Romney. This is a comparatively wealthy class of people, many of whom became venture capitalists and other business elites themselves. They can throw virtually unlimited amounts of money to Romney and/or into independent expenditures.

Romney has the reputation, whether deserved or not, as some kind of business genius. Look for lots of stories about the Salt Lake Olympics and how Romney "saved" it.

My take is that the money manager class had enough of the incompetence and batshit insane religious right. Romney may be Mormon and may have flipped on "values" positions, but he's not insane.

He'll take care of the executive class well enough should he become President. Another flop on social issues is a small price to people making millions and billions of dollars. This is a class thing, not a social values thing.

what exactly is 'between' a 'complete' and a 'utter' failure?

You should not discount Romney's chances in a general election.  CA Pol Junkie's grand unifying theory of presidential elections is as follows:

The winner of the presidential general election is the candidate who would be elected prom king.

This is based on low information voters going "with their gut", which means voting for the guy they like.  The more charismatic candidate has won every election going back to at least 1976, and Romney has more charisma than any of the Democrats (except maybe Obama if he runs).

Now Brownback is a true-blue right-winger who could capture the hearts of the base.

But Romney will just fold like a cheap suit.

If Brownback gets in that means the wingers are serious about making some noise in 2008.

Frankly, I don't see why not. They think that the Republican party lost support because they "betrayed" conservative values, so obviously the thing to do is nominate a true wing-nut for 2008.

But, the Republican party is a business party and they aren't interested in ideological purity, they are only interested in power.

So McCain is their man becuase he can win. Nothing else matters and the wing-nuts will just have to forget about it.

I don't know how they can stand it. McCain is the Republican Leiberman. He's talking like a rightie now but how will he govern?

Will he really nominate another fascist for the S.Ct if he gets the chance even if Democrats control the senate (which is likely) or will he "compromise" like Gerald Ford did with the nomination of John Paul Stevens. Righties weren't too happy with that.

The GOP already has a Moron candidate with his hat in the ring (Duncan Hunter). That should work to Romney's benefit, since the distinction will help him clarify that he's not that, he's the Mormon.

Ye gods, talk about underwhelming candidates; a clueless San Diego-area fan of Cunningham, just barely to the left (I think) of Hitler, and one of the nation's least popular governors.

Unless Romney can make a firm peace with the Dobson claque, I think he's not got a chance.

Let us not forget the 2004 race for the Massachusetts state legislature, where Romney spent unprecedented amounts of money and almost all of his personal political capital to elect Republicans to the statehouse, to help defeat the marryin' o' the gays.

The Republicans LOST seats in the state legislature that year.  It effectively killed the GOP in Massachusetts politics.  How dead are they?  In 2006, the Green-Rainbow Party fielded more candidates for statewide races than the GOP did.

Romney doesn't have a chance.