The National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru says a Mitt Romney vs. Sarah Palin primary would be a bloodbath-- one threatening to divide the party along the basest of lines.
The 2008 presidential election was a festival of identity politics in both parties: upper-middle-class white women voted for Hillary Clinton, Mormons and rich people for Romney, evangelicals for Mike Huckabee, young and inexperienced voters for Barack Obama.
If Romney and Palin are the top Republican contenders, the next presidential race could become even more tribal.
That tribalism would fall along the lines it has in most polls -- less educated, lower income voters would favor Palin, while more educated, higher income voters would choose Romney.
That divide is particularly wide and deep today, thanks to unusually high levels of mistrust between mainstream Republicans and tea party types.
Even more dangerously emotional -- the fight could descend into a religious conflict centered around the idea that a Mormon would live in the White House.
Ponnuru's also got a counter-intuitive thought that makes a lot of sense -- Romney and Palin probably want each other to run.
To the extent the many Republicans who do not want her [Palin] to win the nomination think that she could, they will feel compelled to get behind whoever they think can stop her.
They may well think that Romney is that man — or, what amounts to the same thing, that enough other people will think so that he is the anti-Palin. To a lesser extent, Republicans who disdain Romney may prefer her as a way to stop him.
He ends by making an appeal to GOP voters to "unite behind another candidate" -- one less likely to stir the class warfare that a Romney vs. Palin matchup would provoke.
And thus, conservative dissatisfaction with the current field grows, and you have to wonder if there will be a genuine draft candidate.
Last night, Chris Christie spoke at the Hoover Institute, where he reportedly sounded more like a national figure than ever.
"It was not just a speech about what he was doing in New Jersey. He went after Obama and Obama’s policies over and over and over again," said one surprised attendee, who noted that Christie had just come from a meeting with the president to the Hoover board's annual winter meeting at the Willard InterContinental hotel t.
"I came away thinking that he’s trying to keep his options open."
Will Christie be the target of the genuine draft or will it be Jeb Bush?
