One of the (few) reasons it’s worth trekking to party conventions is that the gatherings often reveal glimpses into a party’s future if the candidate being nominated loses the general election. In 2000, the Democrats staged an event akin to a baton-passing from Bill Clinton to Al Gore. When Gore lost, power in the party reverted to the Clintons. At the 2004 convention, Democrats were far more excited about Barack Obama than about John Kerry, their nominee, and Kerry’s loss paved the way for Obama’s rise. On the Republican side, in 2008, Sarah Palin’s electrifying speech, delivered to a crowd that had trouble ginning up excitement for John McCain, was a harbinger of the Palinization of the Republican Party that occurred after McCain lost, even if Palin herself didn’t survive her rocket launch.

This week’s G.O.P. convention has an especially post-Romney feel to it, with major Republicans spending as much time jockeying for 2016 as they are boosting Romney’s candidacy in 2012. Jeb Bush, whose speech Thursday night focussed on education, has been particularly active. Bush has been around for a while, but he continues to represent a faction of the Party that’s interested in modernizing the G.O.P. to attract non-white voters, who represent a rapidly growing percentage of the electorate. Earlier this week, he told reporters here in Tampa that his party is only doing “O.K.” in its outreach to Hispanics; reiterated his support for the DREAM Act, a position that no Republican Presidential candidate could safely take in the 2012 primaries; and praised Obama’s record on education. In today’s G.O.P., Bush represents a return to a kind of reform Republicanism not much different than what his brother spoke about fashioning— at least in his 2000 “Compassionate Conservative” incarnation.

Chris Christie’s turn at the podium Tuesday night was dismissed, and rightly so, for its self-promotion. (See Steve Coll’s Daily Comment.) Christie violated a cardinal rule of convention etiquette: work to set yourself up as a Party leader in case the current nominee fails, but don’t get caught trying. Still, he probably has more critics in the press and among liberals than within his party, where one imagines he will remain popular despite the poor reviews. (Recall that Bill Clinton had a disastrous convention appearance in 1988—he was actually heckled—and then became President four years later.) Christie sounded either like a politician who hasn’t worked out what he believes about the world or one who was simply trying to fashion a New Jersey version of Obama’s 2008 theme of non-ideological bipartisan politics.

But much of the rest of the crop of Republican leaders represents what might as well be called the Paul Ryan wing of the Party. The convention was a sleepy affair until Ryan spoke on Wednesday night, and given that he’s been the most influential policy force in the Party over the last four years, last night was a fitting capstone to his remarkable rise. (Again, there are shades of Obama here.)

So what direction will the party turn if Romney loses? Toward Jeb Bush’s reformism, Christie’s tough-guy non-partisan schtick, or Ryan’s austere libertarianism?

Certainly there will be a much more experienced field of candidates in 2016. This year’s contest had the look of the cantina scene in “Star Wars,” partly because a generation of talent was washed away in the Democratic tidal waves of 2006 and 2008. After a few cycles of recovery, 2016 will have fewer sideshow acts like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain on the Republican side. It will be a strong field.

The most conservative faction of Republicans, to which Ryan may have a claim, will argue that alleged moderates like McCain and Romney have led the party to back-to-back defeats, and thus make the case for purism. This is the most likely scenario: another cycle of the Republican march to the right. But much will depend on Obama’s success in a second term (again, if he wins one). If the economy recovers and Obama presides over robust growth in a second term, the more partisan and right-wing case against the Democrats will likely be defanged, much as it was in 2000, when Bush felt the need to fashion his compassionate conservatism in response to Clintonism’s success. Ironically, this means that potentially moderate candidates like Bush, despite what he says tonight, might secretly be rooting for Obama to win.

For more of The New Yorker’s convention coverage, visit The Political Scene. You can also read Ryan Lizza on Paul Ryan’s five hypocrisies; Kelefa Sanneh on Gary Johnson and Ron Paul; Jane Mayer on Republican women; Hendrik Hertzberg on the “We Built It” slogan; George Packer on foreign policy and the R.N.C. and on Tea Party activists; Amy Davidson on the floor fight, on the Romney love story, on Chris Christie, on Condoleezza Rice, and on shiny things in Tampa; Virginia Cannon on Republican playlists; and John Cassidy on Ann Romney’s and Paul Ryan’s speeches and on Newt Gingrich.

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.