In their apparent on-going mission to will a Clinton nomination into being (see also Rove, Karl) Republicans continue to define electability as "best able to defeat Hillary Clinton."

If you watched the petulant Mary Matalin on Meet The Press yesterday, you heard her advocate on behalf of her candidate, Fred Thompson, as follows:

The main superior rationale [for voting for Fred Thompson] is that he'll be better in the general election, he's better than any of these guys against Hillary, he's not afraid of Hillary, he's a better politician than her [sic] and he'll get more blue states.

Putting aside for a moment the fact that Matalin didn't appear for a second to believe the spin she was spouting, nor did she provide any evidence for these claims, it is interesting that Republicans are using a candidate's perceived ability to win in the general as the number one reason to support him. They know that half of what Elizabeth Edwards said in Time Magazine is true:

"Their nominee won't energize them, Bush won't...

And they're desperately hoping the other half is:

...but Hillary as the nominee will.

The problem for Matalin is that Republican voters tend to see who is most electable quite differently.

The latest Diageo/Hotline poll finds that while 27% of Republicans support Giuliani for the nomination, 38% see him as the candidate with "the best chance of beating the Democratic nominee" and a full 42% see Giuliani as the candidate with "the best chance to beat Hillary Clinton."  And the case that Mike Huckabee makes for his own candidacy, again, against Hillary Clinton, perhaps best illuminates why this is: Giuliani is seen as Democratic-lite.

"Quite frankly, Americans are going to look at a contest where there's contrast. That's what I bring to the race, someone who can contrast in terms of philosophy and record, but also who's going to be able to challenge her on key fundamental issues like education and health care," Huckabee said.  [...]

"Hillary is a strong, strong candidate, much stronger than a lot of Republicans want to accept," Huckabee said. "But the reality is that if we put someone up whose views on some of the issues that rally our base don't rally our base, then we're going to be in big trouble."

What Huckabee is doing, of course, is reframing electability altogether not as an electoral calculation but rather as a battle of ideas, echoing the strategy of contrast that the left has urged our politicians to embrace. Huckabee seems to have learned an important lesson from the Kerry campaign of 2004: that while defining electability as perceived electoral strength AGAINST another candidate may be a proven path to the nomination, it's also a proven loser in the general.

So which strategy will ultimately win the Republican nomination? If the Diageo/Hotline poll is an accurate gauge of the mood of the Republican electorate, Huckabee may be on to something. When asked why they are supporting the candidate they do, 47% said because they agree with him on the issues, while only 16% said because he has the best chance in the general election. And certainly Huckabee's campaign model is already paying dividends for him against Giuliani in Iowa and to a lesser extent in New Hampshire and South Carolina. But the fact that the pundit class sees the best argument for a candidate as the ability to change the map and take blue states (see Matalin; see also concern troll Dave G at Race42008,) demonstrates not only that they are on the defensive, but also is an acknowledgement that their base has no confidence that a battle of ideas will actually be a winner for them in 2008 (duh) and in fact that their base has virtually already conceded defeat.