For the men (and one rather polarizing woman) who might run for president as Republicans in 2012, now is the wilderness campaign. After the midterms, the struggle for the nomination will move out into open country. But for the moment, it’s all guerrilla warfare and tactical maneuvering  in the form of Web videos and op-eds, speeches and endorsements, and the occasional public dig at a potential rival.

By definition, in a wilderness campaign it’s hard to tell who’s winning. Are all of the endorsements by Sarah Palin building an army of “Mama Grizzly” Republicans who will rise up for her in 2012? Did Mitch Daniels’s June trip to Washington, during which he managed to irritate both neoconservatives (with talk of defense cuts) and social conservatives (by floating the idea of a social issues “truce”), quiet some of the buzz around the Indiana governor’s candidacy? Was Mitt Romney’s recent op-ed article attacking the New Start treaty a savvy move that burnished his credentials as a critic of the Obama administration’s foreign policy? Or was it an unforced error, because it annoyed pro-Start foreign policy hands in the Republican establishment?

Matters will become clearer once the midterms pass and campaign officially begins  but maybe not that much clearer. The Republican Party is famous for always nominating the politician whose “turn” it seems to be, and for choking off insurgent candidacies early on. In 2008, though, there was a wild and un-Republican scramble for the nomination, and the original front-runner, John McCain, only emerged as the winner through a series of fortuitous coincidences.

Right now, 2012 looks as if it could be another free-for-fall. In part, that’s because the populist temper is stronger among Republicans than it’s been since the days of Barry Goldwater. But it’s also because the most likely leaders for a populist uprising, Palin and Mike Huckabee, have a more devoted following than most earlier insurgents  and the current “it’s his turn” candidate, Romney, inspires little in the way of actual excitement.