Take a gander at the speeches, Twitter comments, and Facebook posts being launched by the Republican Party’s potential 2012 presidential candidates like Sarah Palin, Tim Pawleny, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee and you will see a bevy of candidates frantically trying to appeal to the party’s conservative base. This routine closely resembles the 2004 Democratic field of Dean, Kerry, Sharpton, Edwards, Clark, and Gephardt who tried desperately to out-liberal one another, leading to the eventual reelection of George W. Bush.

It is tough not to notice the current flock of probable GOP candidates reaching out to the ideological right in an effort to increase their own visibility for the upcoming national campaign. The problem is, will these sharp moves to the right sink their chances of capturing a national electorate that sits somewhere between the right and left?

A new report from Gallup shows that while more Americans are identifying themselves as “conservatives,” there is a convincing argument to be made that voters inhabiting the most critical states in the reapportioned 2012 Electoral College are firmly planted in the center. The Gallup report, issued on Feb. 25 ranks each state and Washington DC based upon their propensity for liberalism, conservatism, and moderate centrism via daily tracking polls of likely voters conducted throughout 2010.

Overall, the national figures reflect that 39.8 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, 36.2 percent moderate, and 20.3 percent liberal. 43.7 percent claim to lean towards the Democratic Party while 40.4 percent lean towards the Republican Party. But does this angle give us a clear view of the big picture telling us what it will take to win a presidential election under the reapportioned Electoral College?

While conservative identifiers may be on the rise, the raw data shows that voters in the most essential battleground states which will inevitably determine who wins the 2012 race are not shying away from the moderate label. The data also indicates that any candidate with a serious chance of winning the 2012 presidential election has to appeal far outside of their own ideological parameters. In short, a highly liberal Democrat or an ultra-conservative Republican candidate cannot reach the 270 votes required for electoral victory without a sizeable share of moderate-leaning states in tow.

27 states totaling 318 electoral votes exceed the national average of voters describing themselves as moderates, 22 states totaling 194 electoral votes exceed the national average describing themselves as conservatives, and 14 states totaling 171 electoral votes exceed the national average describing themselves as liberals. Overlap occurs in the Gallup data as voters in seven states exceed both the national averages for conservative and moderate identification. Additionally, 12 states see overlap with voters exceeding the national average for moderate and liberal identification. The table below summarizes these findings.

Based upon the Gallup data, a candidate running excessively hard to the right could only look to gain about 142 electoral votes from 15 states where voters exceed the national average for conservative identification. A candidate running markedly hard to the left could likely gain 16 electoral votes from two states exceeding the national average for liberal identification. This leaves a massive chunk of 380 electoral votes sitting in states that either trend above the national average for being exclusively moderate, above the national average for both moderate and conservative, or above the national average for both moderate and liberal.

In short, these 380 votes are up for grabs. The candidate capable of capturing the imagination and interests of the voters not at the ideological poles—but somewhere between them—will win the day. These voters will ultimately reelect Barack Obama or catapult a Republican into the White House.

If a candidate tries to eschew the center, they will also come up woefully short. A Republican candidate capturing the 142 conservative electoral votes and the 52 votes from states exceeding the national averages for both moderates and conservatives will still come up short with 194 electoral votes. Similarly, a Democratic candidate bringing in the 16 votes from states exceeding the national liberal average and the 155 votes from the states exceeding both the moderate and liberal national averages misses the mark with just 171 electoral votes.

Simply put, the winning candidate in the 2012 presidential election will be the one who cobbles together the right mix of states by appealing to the center.

If you accept the Gallup data as legitimate, two scenarios are possible for victory next year. First, a candidate who wins the 16 electoral votes in the most liberal states, the 97 electoral votes in the exclusively moderate states, and the 155 votes in the states where the moderate and liberal voters exceed both the national averages will find himself with 268 electoral votes, just two shy of victory and in need of only turning one state his way.

In a second scenario, a candidate who brings in the 142 votes from states with voters exceeding the national average for conservatism, the 97 exclusively moderate state electoral votes, and the 52 votes in states where the moderate and conservative voters both exceed the national averages will find himself with 291 electoral votes and heading to the winner’s circle.

The problem for the GOP is that the Obama campaign is positioning itself to take advantage of scenario one. While they do this, the Republicans are left with a group of candidates preaching to the converted, rallying the base, and leaving the moderate bloc of voters needed for victory in scenario two open for persuasion by Obama and the Democrats.

Given these findings, national Republicans ought to be asking the question: where are Teddy Roosevelt, Nelson Rockefeller, Bill Scranton, Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Dick Nixon, and John Heinz when you need them?