We've now had a couple chances to see the GOP presidential candidates stand together and debate and the results have been highly disturbing. While their counterparts in Congress can't wait to shuffle off the Bush albatross, the presidential candidates continue to argue with each other over who will go further than Bush. And there's only one reason they're taking this seemingly counterintuitive route: the bloodthirsty conservative base demands it. As was aptly demonstrated in the Tuesday's debate, offering oneself as a tyrannical president consistently yielded whoops and cheers from the ignorant authoritarians present in the audience. And when one candidate suggested something reasonable--maybe US foreign policy has something to do with Middle Eastern terrorism--a livid Rudy Giuliani let loose an incoherent barrage of violent options for dealing with the Islamofascists, to the mass-rally cheer of the 25%ers Fox News gathered to hear the debate.

This spectacle of authoritarian xenophobia and demagoguery got me thinking back to my longstanding prediction about Gingrich and McCain being the two candidates most likely to win the nomination and what led me to that conclusion. With regards to McCain, his earlier inevitability as a front runner along with his unwavering support for the War and its escalation signaled to me that he could easily capture a major chunk of the GOP voting base. Events since then have demonstrated a McCain campaign that has repeatedly shot itself in the foot and erased any advantage that inevitability might have had. And in a crowd of candidates that all want more war, more torture, less liberty and more authority, there's just nothing to make McCain stand out.

My inability to recognize that the GOP candidates would distinguish themselves by being worse than Bush also clouded my judgment about Gingrich. I assumed, in the wake of a conservative movement deep within an identity crisis, that Gingrich would represent a return to conservative ideals that firmly repudiate Bush conservatism. My mistake was in assuming that these principled conservatives would be politically engaged. Rather it has been the most bigoted and bloodthirsty elements that are leading the charge. And the candidates are giving them red meat by the truckload. Whether it is abortion, war, homosexuality or immigration, the response has been unblinking power, slavish authoritarianism and exclusionary policy. This is nothing but the war cry of conservative white Christian males who demand that they rule the globe. And the candidates are giving them just that. How is Newt to compete? Sure, he holds many of these views himself, but how is supposed to distinguish himself from the rest of the pack? Indeed, that is the major problem with each of the GOP candidates. The consensus amongst people like me who analyze politics (professionally or otherwise) is that Giuliani's lead in the polls is due to his early adoption of the authoritarian model. From the get-go he was the pro-torture, pro-war, anti-liberty candidate whose entire candidacy rested upon his 9/11-forged mythological image. That is why Rudy's social liberalism is so far irrelevant to the base. His promise to use the presidency as a position of tyranny is enough for the 25%ers. If he held orthodox right wing views on abortion, gun control and immigration, he would already be the nominee.

This is all to say that I've had to rethink my predictions. It isn't clear who the nominee will be, and that is due to the candidates' group decision to throw general electability to the wind and run campaigns that cater exclusively to a distinct minority of the country. I didn't expect the candidates to go this far right, in other words. And actually, I'm glad they are taking such reprehensible and unpopular positions. It forces the GOP into a corner and hastens the crackup that has been in the works for the past couple years. It's better for the public at large to see exactly what conservatism has become and decisively reject it rather than to delay the inevitable.