Enthusiasm Gap

As has been evident for some time during the primary season, Democrats are wiping the floor with Republicans in the intensity of interest in their candidates and in the 2008 elections overall.

Call it the enthusiasm gap: In everything from voter turnout to campaign fundraising, Republicans are lagging in ways that could mean trouble in November.

"We have got to get the Republican Party excited about this candidacy," says Rick Davis, campaign manager for Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee. "I think that's one of the things that's probably more important for us to do than to draw the contrast with any of the Democratic candidates."

I think the only way the GOP will get its people really excited about their nominee is to scrap the whole process and start over from scratch. Of course, I don't know who they could possibly select that would be acceptable to the different factions of their fractured coalition. They tried to pass Romney off as that guy, and look how that turned out.

No, this is a structural problem, and the Republican Party is going to be in trouble for a while.