Looking for Mr. Right

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As a result, many conservative activists are looking with new interest--and urgency--toward putting their muscle behind some of the lesser known candidates who are thinking about running. One who is getting good buzz as he makes the rounds of activists is retiring Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister regarded as one of the nation's most successful Governors. "At this point, if there is a candidate out there that has a chance to come out of the weeds as the dark horse, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was Governor Huckabee," says Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's policy arm. Huckabee says he senses that conservatives feel "a need to coalesce around a person whose record matches his rhetoric."

Huckabee is not the only Republican long shot who senses an opening. With each week, it seems the potential field of conservatives is growing. Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson has already formed an exploratory committee; California Congressman Duncan Hunter and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore are expected to soon. Also being talked about as possible candidates are South Dakota Senator John Thune and a raft of current and former Governors that includes Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty, Oklahoma's Frank Keating and Colorado's Bill Owens. But the one whom many conservatives are pining for--Florida's outgoing Governor, Jeb Bush--has declared himself unavailable.

At least one champion of the conservative movement seems to be taking his time, in part because he's betting that there will continue to be a void on the right. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he intends to wait until fall to decide whether to run for President. By then, "either one of these folks captures the ideas and captures the nomination, or they don't," Gingrich says, adding that a candidate with his name recognition and credibility with conservatives would still have time to catch up. Rushing into the race merely plays into the hands of the professional political class, Gingrich says. "It would be nice to spend a year developing genuine solutions that work for the American people rather than whatever pablum the political consultants come up with."

Gingrich also notes that conservative activists are never entirely happy with their choices. "In an ideal world, they would find a new Ronald Reagan. They haven't found one," he says. "But remember, there were a lot of ideological conservatives who were unhappy with Reagan because he wasn't pure enough," having signed the nation's most liberal abortion law when he was Governor of California. And in the end, of course, elections give voters a choice among the people who are actually running, not the people they wish were running. As one G.O.P. official put it, "Nothing will rally conservatives and Republicans like a Hillary nomination."

With reporting by Mike Allen/Washington

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