For American conservatives,

this is the winter of discontent

As they gather for the annual Conservative

Political Action Conference (CPAC) this weekend,

the three major Republican presidential candidates

fall well-short in conservative purity and character

The right wing desperately needs

another cowboy conservative like Roanld Reagan

An era of a certain type of Republicanism

- of heartless "big government conservatism" at home

and discredited neoconservatism abroad -

is coming to an end. This presidential election,

like the midterms last November,

is surely the Democrats' to lose.

The winter of conservative discontent

For American conservatives, this is the winter of discontent. As they gather for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this weekend, the three major Republican presidential candidates for 2008 are all sniping at each other with great effectiveness, proving that they fall well-short in conservative purity and character.

And in small-group meetings and dinners and conversations, conservative stalwarts already speak of 2008 as a lost cause, at least at the presidential level.

In short, the conservative movement seems lost. And it certainly has lost one essential element of Reaganism - namely, a "can-do" spirit that always sees a triumph right around the corner, and thinks it has a way to achieve it.

Newt Gingrich has said that this CPAC gathering is the most important since 1975, when Ronald Reagan began to unify the conservative movement behind him.

Indeed, it's a major event, with three days full of panel discussions (36 of them), private receptions (40) and major dinners, and total attendance expected to top 5,000.

But to what end? The 1975 event was a unifying one; this year's gathering features no obviously unifying theme or champion. The incumbent president, George W Bush, has given conservatism a bad name and, privately, conservative movement veterans have long complained that he's never been one of them.

He has sponsored profligate spending, supported open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants, and failed to put enough troops on the ground in Iraq.

In short, they feel like they have received the public blame for Bush without any - or at least without many - of the benefits that come from having a conservative in the Oval Office.

Hence, the winter of conservative discontent. Quin Hillyer @ CIF

The era of this particular brand of Republicanism is coming to an end

The lacklustre "announcement" by Senator John McCain of Arizona on a TV talk show this week that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination speaks volumes about how difficult it will be for his party to retain the White House in 2008.

The quotation marks around "announcement" are deliberate. Mr McCain has unabashedly acted like a candidate for 12 months at least, and his confirmation of that fact to host David Letterman will be followed by a formal campaign launch in April.

Such are the ways of the modern American presidential politics, where the maximisation of media exposure is everything.

But the real message of Mr McCain's wan and subdued performance was another. A year ago, unarguably, he was the Republican front runner, no longer the outsider of 2000 but the candidate of the party establishment.

These are absurdly early days in the 2008 campaign proper, but already there is a sense that Mr McCain cannot win.

In most respects, he is an admirable politician, high minded and with the courage to take on prevailing party orthodoxy if he believes it is wrong.

But, the whispering runs, he is too old, too distrusted by Christian conservatives, and too supportive of the ever more unpopular war in Iraq.

However, each of the major Republican candidates, actual or potential, has drawbacks. Rudolph Giuliani now seems the party favourite, but his liberal social views on abortion and gay rights are equally suspect to right-wing activists who play such an important role in the primaries.

The digging, meanwhile, has barely started into his colourful personal and business background. Mitt Romney, the polished former governor of Massachusetts and the third so-called "top tier" Republican challenger, is busy wrapping himself in conservative colours, but the sincerity of his conversion raises as many doubts as his Mormon background.

In short, the religious right is unhappy with what is on offer. Waiting in the wings is the former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Mr Gingrich is an exceedingly clever fellow. Alas, his bombastic, red-blooded style and his proneness to gaffes surely make him unelectable in a general election.

But there are deeper problems for Republicans, revolving around policies as well as personalities.

Barring some devastating terrorist attack, the main issues in 2008 will not be national security and terrorism, but bread-and-butter domestic concerns over health care, job security, and the glaring disparities between rich and poor.

All these play to Democratic strengths. And then, of course, there's Iraq.

A victorious Republican will have to swim upstream against the mighty river of public opposition to a war started by a Republican President - a war which two Americans out of three now believe was a mistake.

George Bush's own approval rating is bumping along at 30 per cent or less, so he is unlikely to be of any help to whoever wins the nomination.

Moreover, Mr McCain, Mr Giuliani and Mr Romney all support Mr Bush's troop surge that escalates US involvement in the conflict.

Put everything together, and you get the sense that more than a change of guard at the White House is approaching.

An era of a certain type of Republicanism - of heartless "big government conservatism" at home and discredited neoconservatism abroad - is coming to an end. This presidential election, like the midterms last November, is surely the Democrats' to lose.

Only a moderate, centrist Republican can win in 2008, but that is not where the party's centre of gravity lies.

Sometimes a political party needs a spell in opposition to recharge its batteries and sort itself out. That is now true of the Republicans in the US. Indy