The names have changed, but the dynamic is the same. At the end of 2007, just as at the end of 2006, Republicans are looking for a consensus conservative candidate, and the race for the nomination is still in great flux.

2007 has been one long quest to find a conservative. At this time last year, John McCain, a maverick, and Rudy Giuliani, a social moderate, sat atop the race. George Allen, conservatives’ hope in early 2006, had self-destructed. Bill Frist declined to run. There was a gaping void on the right, where most Republican primary voters reside.

Throughout the year, a series of candidates interviewed for the conservative spot. First, the sirens’ call was heard that an outsider, Fred Thompson, was needed to join the race and save the GOP. Thompson was, after all, a telegenic, experienced, Southern conservative. But he peaked on July 4, when he should have entered the race, and by the fall when he finally did jump in, his campaign was universally panned by Republican insiders.

Along the way, Mitt Romney was erasing doubts that he was a conservative by disavowing his liberal Massachusetts Republican pedigree and espousing orthodox conservative positions on social issues, immigration, spending and foreign policy. Romney did a lot of things right. He raised money, he displayed a business leader’s temperament and he evinced discipline as a candidate.

During the summer, Romney, Thompson and Giuliani looked like the only three who could win the nomination. Giuliani could win if Romney and Thompson split the conservative vote.

Thompson was the conservative candidate in the South and Romney, the conservative candidate elsewhere. Either Thompson or Romney could beat Giuliani if they knocked out the other and consolidated conservative support.

And in October and November, Romney looked as if he had done just that. His intense focus and top-notch organization in Iowa and New Hampshire, combined with Thompson’s lackluster campaign, led conservative insiders to think that Romney was the one. By winning in the early states, he could dispatch Thompson and put Giuliani on the defensive.

But just as establishment conservatives thought they had their man, the base rebelled, and Mike Huckabee shot to the top. It is not easy to explain Huckabee’s sudden rise, but it is a combination of a talented candidate and the yearnings of evangelical conservatives to elect one of their own. Huckabee appealed directly to these voters by identifying with their religious convictions and by emphasizing his modest roots. Huckabee is the anti-Romney, capitalizing on evangelicals’ worries about Mormonism and their distrust of big-business Republicans.

Huckabee’s strength, however, puts conservative insiders in a box. They think Romney is smart, tough and organized enough to run a top-flight campaign. Huckabee is seen as Barry Goldwater or a Republican Howard Dean, a conservative with narrow appeal who is doomed to lose in a landslide in November.

The race is now as fluid as ever. Huckabee could fall from grace before the Iowa caucuses, as Dean did in 2004. More likely is a strong Huckabee showing that dilutes Romney’s strength.

A division of the conservative vote between Romney and Huckabee should benefit the moderate Giuliani. But Giuliani has his own problems. He lags behind Romney and McCain in New Hampshire, and he might have to withstand five or six losses before getting to Florida and the Feb. 5 states.

Like modern-day Pandoras, when GOP candidates open their Christmas presents, they will find the forces of chaos and disorder, as well as a sliver of hope that they can win the nomination. This is the muddled Republican race.

Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.