John Fund, writing at OpinionJournal.com, says no Republican candidate has sealed the deal with conservatives. Writing from the Conservative Political Action Conference, Fund says undeclared potential candidate Newt Gingrich "gave the most inspiring speech," while Mitt Romney narrowly won the straw poll with "superior organization," and John McCain damaged his prospects with his odd decision to not speak to the group.
McCain's decision to not speak to the group "made people wonder why he campaigns as a conservative but doesn't want to be seen in public with them," American Conservative Union president David Keene told Fund.
Fund says Rudy Giuliani "clearly helped himself by showing up" and "can view CPAC as a success."
With few volunteers present, he managed to attract 17% support in the straw poll, second only to Mr. Romney's 21%. (Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas won 15%, Mr. Gingrich 14% and Mr. McCain 12%). A surprising number of CPAC veterans are open to his candidacy. "He has exhibited toughness, and I think he would be the leader our [global] adversaries feared the most in the White House," Kathleen Teague, a former director of the American Legislative Exchange Council, told me. Several people told me they were struck by Mr. Giuliani's line "someone who agrees with me 80% of the time isn't my 20% enemy."
Does that make Gingrich the front-runner? Well, national polls show him with a big lead over McCain and Romney. But, there's a "but"...
But well over half of GOP primary voters are unaware of his liberal positions on everything from guns to the 1996 federal welfare reform bill.
As for the others, Fund says McCain "has not helped himself with his recent identification with President Bush's Iraq policy, but no one doubts he has enormous staying power and could once again take the lead." And...
Mitt Romney is clearly an underdog, although a new Los Angeles Times poll of 133 out of the 165 members of the Republican National Committee found him the favorite among these party insiders. He won backing from 20% of the RNC members, as opposed to 14% who plumped for Mr. Giuliani and 10% for Mr. McCain - results that roughly matched the CPAC straw poll results.
But a third of RNC members expressed no preference for president - a high number given the intensity of the race. That leaves hope for a posse of second-tier candidates, ranging from Mr. Huckabee to former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore.
Fund says "the message of CPAC" is that the job description of "the most conservative who can still get elected in a general election" has not yet been filled.
That's why many CPAC attendees were eager to believe rumors that Jeb Bush or former senator Fred Thompson was about to enter the race. If conservatives were united on a 2008 candidate, such rumors would yield shrugs rather than excitement.
The calls for Fred Thompson to enter the race are growing. Doug Patton, columnist at TheConservativeVoice.com calls him "a conservative who can win." The Blogger News Network rounds up some blogosphere buzz on drafting Thompson into the race.
And the American Spectator's "Prowler" notes that "Former Sen. Fred Thompson wasn't even on the agenda at CPAC, but [he] cast a huge shadow across the event. By Sunday, folks were buzzing more enthusiastically about Romney and Brownback and Gingrich...but still talking Thompson. Interesting."
Update: Rumors of a Fred Thompson candidacy erupt in Knoxville... [Hat tip: Instapundit.]
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