Dear Dairy:

The field of Republican presidential candidates is like a sale bin of dangerously defective toys—something only the most desperate middle Americans can be expected to want to take anything from, and even then not with any enthusiasm. Take a core issue like abortion: Rudy’s for it. That won’t wash. Fred Thompson used to lobby in favor of it. That won’t wash either. Mitt Romney is firmly ideologically set against it, unless it’ll buy him a vote, in which case he’ll cheerily perform one personally. Ron Paul is actually committedly against it, but his Libertarian streak also says it’s OK for Americans to eat aborted fetuses out of Planned Parenthood’s dumpsters without government interference.

The truth is, there is only one candidate that can rouse disaffected Republican voters inclined to sit this election out; there is only one candidate with the standing and profile and hard-won reputation to defeat the Democrats. There is, in the hard light of fact, but one candidate who can lighten the somber outlook of Republican strategists and can guarantee the enthusiasm and voter turnout among the GOP faithful necessary to ensure a Republican victory in November of 2008.

That candidate is Hillary Clinton.

GWB