Who is going to be the Republican Presidential Nominee?

If I had to guess right now, it would come down to a contest between Giuliani and Romney, both of whom have real problems with the Republican Christian right. Giuliani seems at the moment to be the leading candidate. Keep always in mind that right now we are in the money-polls campaign, though. There has not been a single vote cast in any primary or caucus.

Given that caveat, My best guess is that answer to who the nominee will be revolves around Rudy and the social conservatives. I see three alternatives.

1. Rudy's opponents identify a single competitor they can agree on and nominate in Rudy's place. If that happens it will be a process that 'jells' as the primaries get started. My best bet at the moment for such a candidate is Huckabee. He is especially attractive to all Christian Republican groups, but just doesn't have the fundraising, name recognition, or national organization to bring him to prominence this year in the pre-primary fundraising primaries. He may look different (to the social conservative Republicans as desperation builds and Rudy's nomination looms. Yesterday's hit piece on Huckabee strongly suggest that he is anathema to the economic conservatives, and the story of his release of an Arkansas serial killer who went on to kill again probably makes Huckabee unelectable in the general election. For Huckabee to win the nomination would mean that the Republicans had given up on winning the 2008 Presidential election, but also that the takeover of the Republican Party by the religious right was total.

Assuming that no such contra-Giulianni Christian candidate takes hold in the first quarter of 2008, the second and third alternatives are:

2.that the social conservatives will hold their collective noses and tepidly support Rudy as better than the Mormon Romney, or

3. that the nomination will actually go into a brokered convention in which the hold-outs will still be praying for a miracle and refusing to compromise. Without a strong contra-Giulianni candidate (either Romney or a Christian candidate) a brokered convention would still nominate Rudy, with the argument being that he is the most electable candidate.

I don't think the party professionals will permit a brokered convention, particularly since Rudy will seem unbeatable by then anyway. That leaves alternatives 1 and 2 as most likely. Right now the contra-Giulianni forces are holding out trying to force Rudy to rigidly commit to the social conservative positions before they let him have the nomination, and are still hoping for a miracle in the early primaries.

These are the “before the primary votes” guesstimates. The actual primaries are going to quickly shake out the unknown factors here. Josh Marshall summarizes a New York Times article on how the primaries are likely to stack up.

It seems more than likely that Mitt Romney will win Iowa and New Hampshire. Nothing is for certain; but his leads there are substantial and consistent. But South Carolina is where the white evangelicals -- en masse -- come into play. If Rudy can't win there, the importance of his strong plurality showings on the national level probably fade quickly, both as an indicator and as a reality, since Romney will likely pick up the support of others who throw in the towel. If Rudy can win there it probably means the lifers will trade their principles on abortion for beefed up aggression abroad.

If the evangelicals won't go for Giuliani in South Carolina I think it unlikely they can field a credible Christian candidate of their own, so that makes the evangelical contra-Giuliani candidate extremely unlikely.

So then the question comes to whether the evangelicals will vote for a Mormon or just sit home.

The nature of conservatives in general is to follow the guidance of the leaders. Bob Jones, evangelical founder of Bob Jones University has publicly stated that while he does not consider Mormons to be Christians, he does recommend voting for Romney.

It looks like a lot of things will be made clear by the Republican primary in South Carolina.