The GOP-nomination tussle has fascinated me this year in part because of the varied preferences of conservatives and libertarians I know. Obviously, you can see this in the print and online editions of National Review, but the phenomenon extends far beyond that into the blogosphere, interest groups, and GOP organizations. Whenever I mention a Republican candidate on the air or in print, I get deluged with e-mail by the partisans of at least five other candidates. Each typically offers a lengthy argument as to why his or her pick is the right, meaning the Right, choice.

Trying to make sense of all this, I’ve come to believe that the real divide among the Right should be seen as a confidence gap. On one side are those who believe that the modern GOP coalition — the triad formed by economic, social, and foreign-policy conservatives — is outdated and insufficient. It doesn’t add up to a majority (or plurality, as the case may be). They argue that the next Republican nominee needs some distance from conservative orthodoxy to give themselves room to appeal to voting groups in the middle. Some think Giuliani can draw socially liberal voters looking for strength and leadership qualities. Others think Huckabee can draw socially conservative voters who are economic populists suspicious of business, foreign trade, and foreign entanglements.

On the other side of the confidence gap are those who believe recent Republican failures stem from an abandonment of the traditional triad, not its inherent limitations. Both Romney and Thompson argue that they are the “true” conservatives in the race, on all three bundles of issues, though in both cases there are some lingering doubts among some Republican voters about campaign-trail conversions (bigger ones for Romney, small ones for Thompson on, say, immigration).

The man who doesn’t quite fit this model is John McCain. In 2000, he was on the pessimist side of the gap, arguing that the GOP needed to embrace a different set of issues to draw independents into a winning coalition. There remain elements of that message in 2008, for example on immigration. On the other hand, McCain is the ultimate hawk, fiscally conservative enough to attack ethanol subsidies in Iowa, and clearly pro-life (despite past spats with some social-conservative leaders).

The pessimists believe that the confident are fooling themselves and not seeing key changes in the electorate. The confident believe that without bringing all three coalition partners to the table for the fall, any Republican nominee will lose, anyway. Fascinating.