Why Newt or Romney. I don't know.

I posted this week the case that Ann Coulter and others make for Mitt Romney.

I like Ann Coulter a lot.  I think she's hilarious, I have read all her books, and she sticks it to the Left like no one else.  She needs no one to stick up for her and her conservative bona fides.  She was prescient in noting that WWE mogul Linda McMahon could not win the CT senate race, and feverishly supported Chris Christie's run for the White House.  So, Ann has a bit of Northeastern Republican in her, but, if she trusts Romney to govern as a conservative, so do I.

Which was really why I posted the column.  I think it's imperative that Obama be defeated.  I think that is Job #1 for the GOP in 2012.  Today, I think Romney provides the best path to that defeat.  Like Coulter, I have no doubt that Romney would do as he says he will - issue waivers for Obamacare to all 50 states, and sign a bill repealing it, if a Republican Congress sends it to him.  A lot of people on the Right want to portray Romney as some kind of left of center Republican who makes John McCain look like Rush Limbaugh.  That's just patently unfair and is the kind of approach Leftists take to debating.  I agree that some of Romney's positions as he trudged through the Massachusetts Senatorial race in 1994 and later his Gubernatorial victory, were more akin to those of a Northeastern Republican (think Scott Walker), but, hello, he was running as a Republican in the most Liberal of those Northeastern states (leave Vermont alone).  I think you do have to apply some nuance to your views to appeal to voters where you are, and in Massachusetts that means easing your opposition to abortion by recognizing Roe, and distancing yourself from the rightmost elements of the GOP.  It's also why you get Romneycare, because the liberals who populate Massachusetts want it.

Finally, I think he stands the best chance of winning.  He's already demonstrated that he can appeal to moderate to left voters, and he polls best with them.  This election will be about the economy, and he may be the best Republican to appeal to voters who are looking for 1)competence, and 2)non-statist solutions.  

I didn't really want to make this post about Romney again, but I am tired of the Romney bashing from the Right.  It's idiotic, and it should should stop.

I actually think the race has gotten to the point it should be, where we have two candidates who I think can both win a national election.  I would really like to see the rest of the campaign be between these two guys, and start having substantive debates with these two only, because I think we would see that drive the GOP to positions that would be more creative and likely to work, and actually change government.

Today, warts and all, I intend to stick with Newt Gingrich. He has been consistently conservative his entire career (easy to do in his district, though), and he's undoubtedly the guy with the most ideas in this race, and he's the one I'd most like to see debate Obama, again and again.  I wouldn't fear a Romney-Obama debate either, but, I think a Newt-Obama debate would put the lie to Obama's supposed intellect, as Newt would have him on the floor begging for mercy and his teleprompter.

But, that won't be the campaign in 2012 for Obama.  He'll shirk debates, and instead spend a goodly portion of his $1B war chest in a character defamation campaign that will make the dirtiest operator ever (Satan). proud.

I doubt too many of my loyal readers (you know who you are, Mom) actually ever had the chance to vote for Newt, but, since he represented my district here in Georgia, I am one of the few who has ever actually voted for Newt before, and, I intend to again.  He's got flaws, and I fear what we may find out on the Fannie/Freddie consulting gig.  On the marriages and the Tiffany's things, he can say, been there, done that, I am sorry.

So, I say we ride the Newt wave, put Bachmann, Cain, and Perry behind us, and let Newt and Romney battle it out, then get strongly behind the nominee (and the Romney/Rubio ticket) and beat the crap out of Obama and the dems.

Ok?