Written by Derek Brigham | 22 January 2008

In his Capital Journal today at the WSJ,  Gerald Seib puts his finger on a repeating pattern that  was quickly noticed after a glaring debut at the Iowa caucus—GOP representation is being dwarfed by the Tic numbers.

At a time of many bad omens for Republicans, this may be the worst. Right now Democrats look like the eager beaver who shows up at the office early just to get going, while Republicans more resemble the guy who just might stay home in the event of a few sniffles. The silver lining for Republicans is that there may, in fact, be some cures available for their intensity-deficit disorder.

In South Carolina, just over 430,000 voters turned out to cast ballots in the Republican primary. That is down almost 25% from the 573,101 who showed up in 2000, the last time there was a hotly contested Republican primary in the state.

In fact, Sen. John McCain actually won this year's South Carolina primary with some 97,000 fewer votes than he got when he lost the state to George W. Bush in 2000. At the time, that was seen as a crushing defeat.

Will this continue through the rest of the primary season? Will it change once there is a clear GOP front-runner?

Well, that may be September 1-4 if things continue as they have. I am not laying blame, here—It is the way it is.

Now from my experience working a phone bank the last few weeks trying to get folks come out to our GOP BPOU caucus for Super Tuesday, I am hearing a pretty positive response as we call known Republicans. Of course, saying they will come and showing up is another matter. We shall see.

Seib goes on to break down the positives of McCain, Romney and Giuliani should they advance, he throws in the Bloomberg Joker card as a more likely possibility should things stay gridlocked. Then you've got the 'mystery candidate' possibility emerging. What he comes to is the meme we've been hearing for a long time, Hillary or as HH refered to her 2 years ago, 'The Balrog' will unite the GOP...

Finally, there's always the prospect that Democrats just might do the energizing for the Republicans. Republican pollster and consultant Neil Newhouse notes that one path toward greater intensity is "running against a Democrat in the general election who generates real negative passion among Republicans." He adds: "Luckily, such a candidate exists: Hillary Clinton." She registers a whopping 87% unfavorable rating among the party faithful, he notes.

At the same time, a drawn-out and divisive primary fight between Sen. Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama still has the potential to disillusion and discourage some Democrats about their ultimate choice. "There's only one direction that Democratic enthusiasm can go, and that's down," Mr. Newhouse says.

Hey brother, can you spare a heaping cup of zeal?

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