The current state of the field of GOP contenders has once more opened the door for the only real and principled conservative, John McCain.

The YouTube debate on CNN last week underlined how a number of trends are shifting support for the various Republican candidates. Mike Huckabee clearly is on a roll, but despite the success of previous ‘untested’ Southern governors, this one may be a little too Christian and too light on foreign policy expertise in an election where it appears to matter more than ever. The amicable Thompson provided evidence once more that his role will be limited to being a useful member of the support crew, much like a GOP-style version of the late Lloyd Bentsen. The campaign of frontrunning super-mayor Rudy Giuliani meanwhile is beginning to show alarming cracks. Even more revealing was the total phoniness of Mitt Romney who is increasingly looking like a boiler-plate presidential character for a Hollywood sci-fi movie that did not have the budget for an A-list character actor. Worse, Romney has assumed distinct Kerryesque traits: the expensive coiffure is the icing on a politician that will do and say anything to get elected. If we discount frivolous players like Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo and the contentious libertarian Ron Paul, there is in the end only one man left standing on the GOP platform.

In a way it is not surprising that that man is John McCain. He was the runner-up of the last GOP contest, the perennial crown prince during the Bush years, the principled conservative, the war hero and the man who could always reach out across the aisle to find pragmatic if at times unpopular compromises. He is also the real thing: battered, old and a bit scruffy, carrying battle scars from Vietnam to Washington to South Carolina. With him you will not get anything fancy: no smooth talking, no polished manners and no fancy hairdo. The straight talk express may be getting a bit rusty, but it still runs. More importantly it is doing what it should be doing, namely converting years of principled conservatism and love for America into a campaign that if elected can give America and the world a gentle parachute out of the turbulent Bush years. It will not be a break with Bush, no, but neither will it be the sort of repudiation that we can expect under re-energized Democratic management. John McCain is in all likelihood the only man who can soft-land the Bush agenda in calmer waters by taking the sharper edges (think torture, think measurable milestones in Iraq) off a legacy that was not flawed in principle, but flawed in its execution.

Battered for years by forces on the right – the conservative blogosphere being a notable one – many had written off the McCain campaign months ago. It was the time at which the same commentators projected that Fred Thompson would breathe new Reagan-style conservative life into the GOP run-off. But the Reagan-like fighter wasn’t Thompson. It was the man who was unlucky enough to have been forced to become a moderate before he could set his sights on the White House. That has certainly alienated some of the GOP base, but it may be time that if conservatives really want to learn from the Gipper they will have to unite behind the genuine conservative who knows how to capture the center and lead.