Last week, I wrote about who the GOP wants the Democrats to nominate. If you want to know my conclusion and reasoning you’ll have to read the post; however, I will help you out by saying the name of said candidate starts with a “C” and rhymes with “Lenten.” This week, I’ll turn to their own camp and discuss who the Republicans – or rather, Republicans who are concerned with maintaining the GOP as a viable force in American politics in the long run – want as their own candidate.

At first glance, one might be tempted to say John McCain is the favorite of “Yellow-Dog” Republicans. He beats Hillary Clinton handily in the general election, and is even with Obama. Of the GOP candidates, McCain certainly has the best chance of winning the general, and I would argue he’d undoubtedly make the best President out of that sorry lot. To be fair though, asking who’d be the best choice from the other side is kind of like asking which STD you’d like to get – not a great choice to make, but if you’re asking me, I’ll take a curable bacterial infection (McCain) over Herpes (Romney), or full-blown AIDS (Giuliani – a disquieting, delusional joke of a candidate who absolutely must not be allowed to have control over a student Master Card or BB gun, much less the treasury and military of the United States). Anyways – sorry if I lost you at “Herpes” – but I’m talking about the big picture here, so I think saying McCain is the best choice for the GOP in the long run is an overly simplistic view.

First off, the (I think rather bizarre) coalition of economic and fiscal conservatives, “values voters,” and foreign policy hawks is in shambles. As I mentioned in the first post on this topic, the biggest problem the GOP has is that it’s hemorrhaging support from the business community. Secondly, after enduring years of the neo- and theo-con assault on rationality, the country has become much more progressive. Apparently, moderate voters no longer feel that the gay-baiting, arbitrary, and completely redundant banning of same-sex marriage is the most pressing issue facing America. I’d even go so far as to say that many socially progressive business Republicans were embarrassed by the prominent role such nonsense played in the 1948… err, 2004 elections. Nonetheless, Kerry’s attempts at demagogic populist rhetoric caused them to still vote GOP in ‘04. However, most of us (excepting John Edwards) have learned our lesson. The result of this realignment is that there’s at best one GOP candidate that doesn’t offend, at least to some extent, one of the constituencies of the increasingly fragile Reagan Coalition.

McCain has never been too popular with the right-wing nut base(s). As for the first group comprising the GOP base – those that selectively quote Leviticus to provide a facade for their own bigotry, think we don’t need to do anything about climate change because Jesus is coming back soon, and read books about how Christian Conservatives are systematically oppressed because they’re not allowed to implement a theocracy – McCain pretty much burned that bridge when he called Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance” in his 2000 campaign. Given Falwell’s litany of egregiously offensive comments, I think that’s one of the nicer things one could say about the late Reverend, but the theo-cons don’t seem to agree. To make matters worse, McCain has said he doesn’t support overturning Roe v. Wade (then he did for a while, which seems to be his current position – though with all of the “straight talk” it’s tough to tell). McCain has also earned the ire of foreign policy hawks by criticizing the brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed Bush-Rumsfeld Iraq strategy. Even though he’s called for escalation, the neo-cons like to get behind one fuhrer and stay the course – even if it takes us into an iceberg. Any criticism of the dear leader to them means you’re a liberal, and of course we all know how much liberals hate freedom and want to destroy America.

Romney has essentially the same problem as McCain – he changed his position on the abortion rights issue (among many others) when it was politically convenient. This offends the theo-con base because it either means he’s not completely committed to the “pro-life” position, or he’s one of these so-called “thinkers.” As we know, there’s nothing more offensive to values voters than someone who doesn’t have a foolish consistency of opinion. His belief that Jesus used to party with the Native Americans doesn’t help him amongst “values voters” either.

Giuliani is able to make the foreign policy neo-cons giddy with his talk about 9/11, radical Islam, 9/11, terrorism, and of course 9/11; however, he’s pro-choice and pro-gay rights. This is so offensive to the theo-cons that James Dobson even threatened to run a third-party candidate if Rudy is the nominee – rarely do we get such a clear glimpse of just how small the deceptively large-looking tent really is.

Huckabee is plenty reactionary on the social issues, but on the whole he fits the mold of a European Christian Socialist more than a Reagan conservative. As such, though I think it’s unlikely, I’m drooling over the possibility of the GOP nominating Huckabee. The previously mentioned candidates would do varying degrees of harm to the already fragile conservative coalition, but Huckabee winning the nomination would be the political equivalent of dropping a thermonuclear bomb on it.

So that leaves Fred Thompson. There’s nothing too exciting about him (unless you’re a Law and Order addict, though even then… not so much), but he’s been a consistent pro-life, anti-gay, fiscally irresponsible, pro-war conservative. Given that he is the embodiment of the establishment at a time when that’s exactly what voters don’t want, he’d probably lose by quite a significant margin in November. However, he is the one candidate that may be able to keep the Chamber of Commerce, Focus on the Family, and Project for a New American Century under the same tent for the next 8 years. Even still, the inherent contradictions in modern conservatism ala Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush mean that the straws have been piling up, relatively unnoticed, for some time now, and though it might not happen as soon as I hope, I think it’s only a matter of time before one breaks the elephant’s back.