[Vigilanteman]

You are correct on all counts. Huckabee's pandering to the illegal alien lobby rules him out. Absent from your comparison, however, is Duncan Hunter who has both a message and a track record.

Romney is clearly the best of the moderate wing candidates. The conservative wing needs a candidate, however.

[Swordfished]

You are correct on all counts. Huckabee's pandering to the illegal alien lobby rules him out. Absent from your comparison, however, is Duncan Hunter who has both a message and a track record.

Romney is clearly the best of the moderate wing candidates. The conservative wing needs a candidate, however.

I left Hunter, Brownback, Tancredo, and Paul out.

In my opinion they aren't well-rounded enough candidates. Each is very strong on one or two issues but they seem to draw their strength from those issues rather than having inherent strength from which to apply to the issues. It might be the reason they aren't polling well...in addition to MSM bias.

I guess my question is, if the 'conservative' base of the Republican party is so large, why is Guiliani leading all the national polls? and why does McCain do better than Hunter, Tancredo, etc.? If MSM bias is blamed, it doesn't matter, that's a given quantity candidates have to deal with and can't be magically eliminated.

[Rameumptom]

Romney admires Duncan Hunter. After the first GOP debate when asked about the other candidates he only mentioned Hunter and praised him. He said he learned from him.