Neither Newt nor Mitt! We Pick Rick

Who would make the better president? A candidate who has a well-respected and effective leadership style, but who really does not share our core convictions, or a candidate who often shares our convictions but is hindered by intrigue and complexity and whose leadership is seriously flawed?

The first candidate is the conservative of convenience, Mitt Romney. Despite his veneer and how he projects himself as a conservative, his past policies indicate that his first resort to solving a problem is through governmental interference rather than through free enterprise. One fears that after the primary, when it is no longer convenient to be conservative, Mitt’s DNA will resequence him back to being the Massachusetts moderate.

The second candidate is the erratic conservative, Newt Gingrich. Here is a man capable of analyzing grand scale problems and producing grand scale solutions. Often these solutions comport with small government ideology and are appealing to conservatives, although a number of his proposals come across as half-baked, and sometimes conflict with small government ideology. At times, the erratic conservative leaves the reservation to promote global warming or individual mandates.

Newt’s problems might be overlooked for the sake of finding a good candidate rather than the perfect candidate. However, his leadership performance and his history of making seriously flawed decisions that come back to haunt him are the issues which conservatives should not overlook.

Which is worse--a capable moderate or an erratic conservative whose leadership has been tested and found wanting?

If we support Mitt, we compromise our conservative ideology. If we support Newt, we place our conservative ideology into the hands of an erratic conservative who has already been in leadership and who bogged down our agenda through incompetence and intrigue. In either case, we lose.

There is a third option. We can support Rick Santorum, who combines consistent and reliable Reagan conservatism with a history of competent leadership.