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.

In the wake of Hillary’s astounding victory (and by that I mean functional tie – 9 delegates for Clinton, 9 for Obama, and 4 for Edwards) in New Hampshire, one issue that seemed to help her was the electability factor. In the days following Iowa, Clinton garnered support by attacking Obama from the right, saying he was “too liberal” to win in the general election. This is an interesting critique in the primary season, though it does make some sense in light of McCain’s resurgence, who, as a high-profile GOP critic (at least when it’s politically convenient) of Bush, is perhaps the only Republican candidate who can still draw significant support from independents. However, even though her attacks were overshadowed by her crying, I think we are nonetheless obliged to examine whether there’s any truth to these assertions.

Barack Obama – Known Pinko Commie
First, the “too liberal” criticism. There are numerous measures of the “liberality” of a legislator’s voting record, but most are computed the same way. I’ve picked one metric from the left (Americans for Democratic Action) and one from the right (the American Conservative Union). In the ADA rating, Senators are given a “liberal quotient” – the higher the percentage, the more “liberal” they are. In 2006 (the most recent data available), both Senators scored an identical 95%. What’s more, they were both dinged on exactly the same vote – they voted for the Oman Free Trade Agreement (someone will have to explain to me why voting against free trade makes you liberal and/or progressive; as I understand the terms, opposing free trade makes you a reactionary – but that’s another issue). This seems to imply that the “too liberal” label is unwarranted – at least in comparison to the one making the charges – but let’s look at the ACU rating.

Here again, both Obama and Clinton scored an identical 8.0 (Senators are ranked from 0 to 100; higher means more conservative) in 2006. For their lifetime voting records the picture is different; it becomes apparent Obama would start nationalizing industries, burning American flags in the Rose Garden, and offering free abortions in the Lincoln Bedroom: she scored a whopping 9.0, compared to commie Obama’s 8.0. In other words, there’s little, if any, veracity to the implication that Hillary is more moderate than Obama, at least with regards to their respective records in the Senate.

Things get more complicated when we consider other issues besides votes cast; for instance Senator Obama has a much better record on earmarks – declining them for private contractors, but accepting them for public infrastructure. Clinton, by contrast, has been shameless on the issue – since taking office in 2001, she’s earmarked over $500 million for private companies, which have benefited 35+ corporations that have donated to her. She delivered nearly $250 million last year alone. I don’t think earmarking is a liberal or conservative issue anymore than theft is (but I repeat myself), but it is indicative of the type of irresponsible leviathan government that many still associate with the left. Attacks aside, Obama is also arguably more moderate in his rhetoric, which is far from irrelevant.

Numbers
Now onto the polls. I’ve included the four Republicans that I think still have a viable path to the nomination. I tried to contact the Thompson and Paul campaigns for comment, but Thompson was back in his coma, and Ron Paul was too busy race baiting to get back to me. I’ve also excluded John Edwards since he – barring a 3-way sex scandal between Hillary, Obama, and Dick Cheney – doesn’t have any real way to win the nomination. In addition, I think the polls reflect most people’s recollection of sunny, optimistic, moderate 2004 John Edwards; not angry, populist 2008 John Edwards. Anyways, here are the most recent RCP Averages (Dem Var means the difference in the margin of victory between Clinton and Obama):

Rudy Giuliani 45.2% vs. Hillary Clinton 47.0%
Spread: Clinton +1.8%
Rudy Giuliani 41.5% vs. Barack Obama 48.8%
Spread: Obama +7.3%
Dem Var: Obama +5.5%

Mitt Romney 44.2% vs. Hillary Clinton 49.0%
Spread: Clinton +4.8%
Mitt Romney 39.2% vs. Barack Obama 51.4%
Spread: Obama +12.2%
Dem Var: Obama +7.4%

Mike Huckabee 43.5% vs. Hillary Clinton 48.3%
Spread: Clinton +4.8%
Mike Huckabee 39.0% vs. Barack Obama 49.4%
Spread: Obama +10.4%
Dem Var: Obama +5.6%

John McCain 48.8% vs. Hillary Clinton 43.8%
Spread: McCain +5.0%
John McCain 45.0% vs. Barack Obama 45.0%
Spread: Tie +0.0%
Dem Var: Obama +5.0%

Average Dem Variance: Obama +5.9%

My personal views aside, the conclusions are fairly obvious – Barack Obama wins by a substantial margin against all Republicans but McCain, with whom he is tied. Hillary is within or barely out of the margin of error in contests with Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee; she loses to McCain by a statistically significant margin. On average, Obama is 6% ahead of Hillary in general election match-ups. Perhaps more importantly, Obama has room to move up amongst undecideds, while Clinton’s polarizing nature means she can’t expect to move up much, if at all, against the GOP nominee. Only 37% of likely voters would never vote for Obama, compared to 50% for Clinton – the highest unfavorable rating of any candidate of either party.

One advantage Hillary does have is that she might be able to turn out Dem-leaning women in higher numbers than Obama; however, Obama would likely offset this by turning out minorities and young people in higher numbers (especially if he picks my original favorite for the VP slot). The final issue is money; it’s quite well known that Hillary is the favorite of Wall Street – which has dumped the GOP, and now seems willing to put up with a modest tax hike to deal with the fiscal mess and weak dollar – but that has likely been due to her status as the inevitable nominee until recently. Obama is at least as pro-business (contrary to John Edwards’ claims, the interests of business are not opposed to the interests of ordinary Americans, in my opinion) as Clinton, so, like Hillary, he’d have no problem slaughtering the GOP candidate in fundraising.

All of this seems to point to an obvious conclusion: the Republicans are salivating to run against Hillary Clinton. OK, maybe not salivating, but there’s no doubt they feel she’s their best shot at holding the White House.