Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from El Cajon, is running for his party's presidential nomination in 2008, and running hard.

He recently went to South Carolina to speak at a steel mill, which is an unalloyed sign that he is serious, although San Diego took him at his word in October when he announced his intention.

Hunter seems not to have appointed the pro forma "exploratory" committee yet. He says he will next year.

Right-minded explorers won't be doing him or anyone else any good unless they come back and tell Hunter that he is a long shot. Very long. But he knows that already.

Just look at the list (as it stands today assembled by The Associated Press) of contenders for the nomination. Mind you, these are just Republicans who have dreams of an oval office:

Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, Gov. George Pataki of New York, Tommy Thompson.

And Duncan Hunter.

McCain and Giuliani, with a dab of Gingrich and Pataki thrown in, are about the only Republicans that anyone has ever heard of. They are also probably the front runners, although in American politics that is a silly thing to say. Nobody wins anything until the votes are counted, except in Florida, where counting has little to do with winning and losing. There, it's how you stack the game.

With so many nobodies in the gang of 11, who is to say that the equally invisible Hunter cannot move smartly up the list and … one is overcome at the possibilities.

Hunter knows the odds as well as the next man. He's no fool. Thus he has emerged as a contender who seems determined to sing his song of the hawk, and to do that there's nothing like a national campaign, with planes and trains, television and the Web at your disposal.

There is nothing wrong with his approach. That's how the system works.

Make no mistake. This representative of the 52nd Congressional District is a rock-ribbed conservative.

He detests abortion.

He would seal off the border with Mexico in a thrice, and the views he regularly expresses amount to a roundup of all Mexicans on U.S. soil for a quick and rude trip south. He backs the Great Wall Idea, and he does not speak critically of extremist groups that march armed to the border; President Bush has called these groups vigilantes.

He supports the war in Iraq. His ideas on the prosecution of the war, which seem to acquire polish over the months, are definitely hawkish but not without merit, as in his recently expressed view that the thrust of U.S. work there should be to turn controls over to Iraqis as soon as possible.

Most politicians express variations on that theme.

Hunter deplores U.S. trade policy, particularly that part of it he calls "losing trade." The value-added tax that other nations employ is a particular bugaboo.

He believes that he can add value to the discussion of these national issues, and a big race is the place to do it.

To some places in the nation - and in a few hidden crannies of San Diego County - Hunter is sure to be regarded as a wacko, so far right and so unattuned to the national vibe that he is a joke. In other places he may be seen as the one true conservative, a man capable of restoring order to the White House.

In any case, there's no phony in Hunter. He is smart. He believes thoroughly - or appears to from a distance - in what he is saying. He is unlikely to bend, messy as the fray can get. He walked the paddies and marshes of Vietnam, so he won't pull back from a swamp.

- Contact staff writer John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.