George Allen. Rudy Giuliani. Newt Gingrich. Fred Thompson. Mitt Romney. But that doesn't mean conservative have to stop looking, right? Richard Viguerie:
Open it up!
The discombobulated state of the Republican presidential campaign means that it is still possible for someone to jump into the race. Such a candidate could serve as a kingmaker at the Republican convention in September, or even – yes, it’s possible – could become the party’s nominee....
But who?
Former Virginia Governor and Senator George Allen was considered a frontrunner for this year’s GOP nomination before he lost his reelection campaign in 2006. But his loss can be chalked up to his mishandling of charges of racism and to voter resentment toward the Iraq War, and to the fact that Democrats, desperate to win the Senate, swallowed hard and nominated a former Reagan Administration official to run against him. If losing one’s previous statewide campaign disqualified a person from being president, neither Lincoln nor Nixon nor the elder Bush would have won.
Or, if the goal of a last-minute conservative candidacy is to rally the movement and build for the future, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma could get into the race. Coburn could be the Barry Goldwater of his generation – someone who plants the seeds for a future flowering of conservatism, as Goldwater planted the seeds of the Reagan Revolution.
Other possibilities for a serious conservative candidate include Senator Jim DeMint or Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.
(via TPM)
--Christopher Orr