Republicans puzzle over road map to White House

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

OTTUMWA, Iowa (AFP) — Four days before Iowa's curtain-raising caucuses open the US presidential season, the Republican Party is painfully splintered, with no front-runner to unite conservative power bases.

The only certainty of the puzzling 2008 race, in a party which usually closes ranks quickly around a favorite son, is that it will, eventually, produce a nominee.

At least four major Republican hopefuls can claim plausible paths through the thicket of nominating contests -- Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani.

But even candidates are loath to forecast the outcome.

"I'm asked how's it going to come out?" said Romney, the former Massachusettes governor in Pella, Iowa on Saturday. "I can't tell you exactly what's going to...