Why I Like Rick Santorum And Support Newt Gingrich...And Another Bit About Mitt Romney

I’m not one of those who thinks Mitt Romney has a liberal agenda. I sense that his agenda is to BE PRESIDENT, by hook or by crook. It is also my sense that he doesn’t violate his principles, and I don’t recognize a coherent philosophy that he might violate. His clear principle is TO WIN, and he’s very dedicated to it. Maybe…certainly for a while…a productive Republican House and Senate would pull him along. But America is in an unprecedented mess. We need a leader to put a vision before Congress and the American people, of things most people never contemplate, like balancing the power of the judiciary. Mitt Romney certainly doesn’t think of such things. Really? Is this what we want? We need to run a triathlon and we want a President we need to help across the street?

And I don’t for a minute buy Ann Coulter’s nonsense that he is the best candidate to win because he can attract Independents. After the Democrats are through beating him up and with his ineptitude at responding, he might have to slip the Maître d’ a few hundreds to get a seat at a good restaurant. And I sure don’t buy her ridiculous stuff about Romney being the most conservative or Gingrich posing a 49-state landslide loss. Boy, Coulter can sure sling it when she has an agenda. I watch for systematic thought in a leader. And I see none in Mitt in all the time I’ve watched him. He says what he thinks is the right thing for a particular audience even when it makes no sense. He claims he would do things he would have no power to do. Details, right?

I like Rick Santorum. I decline to pass on the criticisms of him for representing his state or for promoting party success. Nothing you care about is possible in the minority. And the Obama campaign would make a big deal of it, but I don’t give a rip if Santorum lost his second Senate reelection bid by 18 percent in Pennsylvania while Republicans were being swept out of power. Other than Ronald Reagan, I easily would prefer Santorum to any Republican President or even candidate in my lifetime. I’d have to admit that’s a relatively low bar, but of the current candidates, I’d probably prefer Santorum’s friendship and regular company. He supports some things I think are both unrealistic and unworkable like a constitutional amendment banning abortion and a federal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. I agree with the ideals, I just don’t think the federal government should constitutionally impose them or practically could. I would hope that a Republican Congress would find enough wisdom not to try it. We’re conservatives. The federal government is unable to fix every social pathology. We have to persuade people and let the states handle these things. I don’t fear anything from Santorum AS President. But I do fear that the Obama campaign would batter him over things like this.

However this is an extraordinary time that particularly calls for extraordinary capability. And it’s there in Newt Gingrich, pocks in his personal life history though there are. I believe he has sobered with age, and understand and believe his new commitment to Catholicism, though I’m an evangelical. Let’s consider that America needs major surgery, and I’m not even certain that that will save it. But I’m pretty certain there will be calamity and/or great dysfunction without it. Now if you or a loved one were in such a dire condition, are you going to look for an impeccable personal life (there aren’t any by the way) or are you going to look for a skilled and experienced surgeon? NO other candidate has Gingrich’s experience and skill with change in government, and none have his awareness of American history and what is required to restore it. Only Gingrich has proposed the necessary changes in our tax and entitlement systems.

And only he looks over contemporary legal conventions and proposes that judicial authority is out of historical balance. We conservatives have long complained of presumptuous judicial activism. We shouldn’t continue to hang our hopes on filling the judiciary with more modest judges. The executive and legislative branches must hold the judiciary to constitutional account. It is not an infallible oligarchy. We know that. Our representatives should act on it. Gingrich has the support of Ronald Reagan’s conservative talk-show host son Michael, Reagan’s economic advisor Arthur Laffer, the brilliant conservative economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell, former Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson, J.C. Watts and Bill McCollum who served under Gingrich’s Speakership in The House, former candidates TX Governor Rick Perry and Businessman Herman Cain, and pollster and Republican strategist Kelly Anne Conway. The condition of the patient is dire. That’s why I support Gingrich without hesitation.