The Christian Right is extremely unhappy with the current range of Republican candidates for the Presidential nomination. They are talking about breaking away and starting a third party for 2008.
It's all talk. Digby explains. The Christian Right has no hope that the Republicans will with the Presidency in 2008. What they are doing is flexing their muscle within the Republican Party. They will do to Romney or Giuliani what they did to Bob Dole in 1996 - they will hang an extreme social right-wing platform on whoever the candidate is, and watch him go down to destruction.
They don't want the Presidency in 2008 anyway. The recession is coming, and whoever gets the election will also have to clean up the Iraq mess. Both are going to make it very unlikely that whoever gets the Presidency in 2008 will be extremely vulnerable in 2012.
So the Christian Right is also setting up a process that will give them a Christian social Republican candidate in 2012, one totally beholden to the social Republicans. They are also going to spend the four years from 2009 to November 2012 attacking the Democrat for their actions taken to clean up the economic and military mess made by the Bush administration.
The social Republicans can't run a third party candidate because such a candidate cannot win, while running a third party will lose them power within the Republican Party. They cannot leave the Republican Party, since they have no chance of influencing Democrats. The only vehicle the social conservatives have for continued power at the national level is to retain power within the Republican Party. At the same time, the Republican Party without the social conservatives will be reduced to permanent minority status. What the social conservatives have to do for long-term national political survival is to (grudgingly) remain in the Republican Party, tank the Republican candidate in 2008 and nominate one of their own for 2012.
That's what all the talk of the Christians running a third party candidate of their own is all about. They are trying for a replay of 1996 - 2000.
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