While discussing the nascent Fred Thompson campaign on the R4′08 bat-phone the other night, Dave and I tried to pin down just what portion of the GOP electorate a Fred Thompson run would resonate with the most. Or perhaps rather: who would Fred Thompson pull the most support from? This necessitated breaking down the base of support of each candidate in the current GOP field. However, this led me to another question: Who makes up Mitt Romney’s current base of support; and from what group (or candidate) does he hope to pull the most support from in order to emerge as the 2008 Republican nominee? Let me begin by stating how I believe the current field shakes out.

Rudy Giuliani: Rudy’s main base is the easiest to identify since he currently leads his nearest competitor by 18%-25% depending upon what poll you believe. Since the margin is so great, it’s reasonable to assume that he draws wide support from many or most of the individual subsets that make up the current incarnation of the Republican Party. However, if I had to give a name to who I believe will form the base of the coalition that will eventually lead to Rudy winning the GOP nomination, I would call them “Bush Republicans”.

Bush Republicans are the rank-in-file of the Republican party that identify themselves are “conservative” or “very conservative”. Social issues may or may not be of critical importance, and they still approve of President Bush. For these voters, Islamofascism is now the the defining issue of our times and they look to the man that personally threw Yassir Arafat the heck out of his city as the kind of leader who should assume leadership of The West’s efforts to combat its spread. Thankfully for Rudy, it is exactly this issue that lead to President Bush receiving the most votes in the history of U.S. Presidential elections.

John McCain: Sen. McCain’s support seems to be an amalgamation of the liberal Main Street Republicans along with the older, traditionalist Republicans who voted for Nixon, voted for Ford, voted for Ronald Reagan, as well as both Bushes and Bob Dole. These mature “VFW Republicans” are the traditionalists of the party who more than likely view Sen. McCain as the heir apparent and will support him because they respect his service (as we all should and do) and believe that it’s “his turn”.>

Newt Gingrich: I believe Newt’s support would fall into the same subset as Rudy’s, with the difference being that these Republicans cannot bring themselves to support Rudy at this time due to his social views. I’ll call this group the “Checklist Republicans”. Is a candidate Pro-Life? Check. Strong on the war? Check. Against tax increases and government spending? Check.

Although socially conservative, conservatism as a unifed whole is what matters to these GOP’ers.

Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee: These candidates will do battle for the hearts of Evangelical voters for whom Social Conservatism is the Alpha and the Omega of why they belong to the Republican Party.

Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter: The Congressmen in this race are competing to represent the Buchananite-Paleoconservative wing of the GOP.

So where does Mitt fall into all of this? Crosstabs tell us that he is not the candidate of the Religious Right, nor is he the first choice of the 9-11 Republican. There are certainly not many Buchananites in his fold. Nor are there likely to be many of the GOP Mainstreeters left after his “Conservatization” on the social issues. He is not an “heir apparent”.

My guess is that Mitt’s core is made up of segments of the “Social Conservative” and “Checklist Republican” subsets that are looking for someone who they view as more electorally viable and charismatic than the current candidates available to them there.

The bad news for Mitt is that as long as Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich remain in the race, there doesn’t appear to be enough unaffiliated Republicans left to make up any ground. And if Fred Thompson enters the race, both he and Newt Gingrich may be dead men walking as Thompson is exactly the kind of candidate that could pull voters away from every candidate and each group.