The short answer and the right answer is, of course, John McCain. He's been kissing all the right ass for the last six years and I don't expect him to slow down over the next 12 months. He remains the darling of big media and will see nothing but flattering stories for the next two years, having made just the right number of moves to establish himself as "independent" and having a still pretty compelling person story.
But we shouldn't underestimate the average Republican power broker's ability to carry a grudge. McCain has a habit of rubbing all the Right people the wrong way--Falwell has let McCain kiss his ring as atonement, but James Dobbs is the real power from the Middle Ages wing of the Republican Party and I don't think he's ever going to forgive McCain. There's also the health issue: McCain seems healthy and probably is, but two boughts of facial tumors is something that could make any Republican smear artist sit up and take notice--and someone's bound to try and eviscerate McCain in the primaries, if only for the bragging rights.
The other batch of candidates mentioned are either too sane to nominate (Giuliani, Hagel) or too scary to win in November (Brownback, Frist, and some guy named either Hunter Duncan or Duncan Hunter). Or like Romney, Pataki, and Tommy Thompson, they fall into that special Lamar Alexander category ("
Nice try, governor, but we're just not gonna look at you).
But there is another Republican out there who should scare you. He's credibly independent for the honest-yet-gullible conservatives who are now starting to realize what a fuck up Bush is and credibly right wing enough to keep from getting smeared with the liberal taint of caring about whether poor kids have any health insurance or not, but not so looney that he thinks the First Amendment only applies to Christians. And to cap it all off, he young (51) and attractive.
Meet
Lindsay Graham, veteran, Clinton impeacher, good ol' boy. He's got a compelling personal story that puts his opponents to shame: his parents died within a year of each other and he adopted his sister to finish raising her. He's cornier than grandma's toe, but is also a wily and accomplished trial attorney. He's pretty far to the right on that nose-in-your-business politics Republicans call "family values," but smartly managed to join up with the Gang of 14 to maintain his bipartisan credentials for a general election in the Fall.
He's a stealth candidate and if those rumors about him being gay turn out to be false (he has never married but seems to have steered clear of "the playboy party") then I think he could be the one who could take out McCain and whoever the antiMcCain is, and get a solid turnout from the fundy base (which neither McCain nor Giuliani would do).
Graham is up for reelection in 2008 and may just be positioning himself for '12 or '16. He may need to give himself more time to find a wife or beard. But he could be the red state Obama waiting to spring on us. Keep an eye on this one.
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