rudy can fail

Rudy is out, which shows that bad guys do finish last (or 4th). But what lies ahead for the Republican party? Republican punditry and the Tancredo-Minutemen-Dobbsified party base seems to be most interested in finding the candidate who would kill the most jihadists, expel the most illegal immigrants, and waterboard the most "enemy combatants"; the one who would establish a 100 year viceroyship in Iraq, and the one who would wage total war on taxes. It takes a tough guy to do this: hence, the monotone and monogender tableaux on the stages of the Republican debates. "Compassionate Conservatism" is simply no longer in vogue. Whereas G. W. Bush claimed the Republican party was inclusive (remember the carnival of multicultural togetherness that was staged at the 2000 Republican convention), republicanism/conservatism today seems to have explicitly embraced exclusion/exclusiveness. This is apparent in the hand-wringing over which candidate is a "true conservative" (Governor Huckabee, you need not apply). Ironically, the race for the nomination has boiled down to two candidates, Romney and McCain, who score low on the Sanford-Binet Conservative Intelligence Scale. However, as long as these candidates serve up a testosterone charged political vision,  a 40th percentile conservative might yet satisfy the base instincts of the base.