Huntsman?

George Will is a Reagan conservative who to some, me among them, comes across as stilted and often pedantic.  However that may be, in this opinion article he articulates the very real problem many conservatives (me among them) have with the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination.  Romney is a Dewey-like candidate (actually he seems more like Hoover) who is not very likeable, and whose platform seems to be to merely micro-manage every aspect of existing government programs and bureaucracies -- a kind of big time efficiency expert. Gingrich is a loose canon,  a "bull in a china shop who carries his china shop around with him" with a propensity to find macro solutions for some problems that may not even exist, when in real time a little less government would do the trick.  What caused many conservatives to have severe reservations about Romney was his interview with Bret Baer of Fox News last week.  When questioned about his changes of policy prescriptions over the years Romney lashed out at Baer using the regal "we" when referring to Baer in his answers revealing a condescending attitude that is most disturbing.  In effect Romney was telling Baer that answering difficult questions about his changing positions on matters in the past is not important, that what is important is his prescriptions for problems facing the nation going forward.  He seems not to understand that conservatives want to know why he changed his positions in order to determine whether he's a garden variety malleable politician or a Reagan-like leader with real, understandable convictions and principles, like theirs.  Recalling the history of the '20's and the beginning of the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover was a putative conservative who in the end turned out to be the architect of the New Deal.  Since conservatives believe the growth of government during and since the New Deal is at the heart of our current problems, another Hoover is not their answer. If  Romney can't reasonably articulate the changes in his positions over the years, the fear in this quarter is he may be just another Hoover.

Why Gingrich?

It's pretty obvious that Republicans, especially conservative Republicans, have grave reservations about Mitt Romney, otherwise he would be well ahead of the pack at this time.  After all, Romney has been campaigning for this nomination for almost four years at this point, considering his run against McCain and his nonstop campaigning since?  Truth is many Republicans simply are not impressed with his record or his presentations of his qualifications. What's more they have doubts that he would hew to the conservative principles and is, in reality, a Big Government Republican in the mold of Rockefeller, McCain, Dole, Ford and all the other centrists of the past.  The grass roots Tea Party rebellion against the Obama Administration's huge overreach in healthcare and most other matters demonstrated how seriously these mainstream, largely Republican voters are about Big Government and its intrusion into individuals' lives.   Because of his actions as Governor of Massachusetts, these voters have great reservations about Romney's commitment to their Small Government philosophy.  In addition they seem also to be unsure of his oratorical skills  going up against those of Obama.  Gingrich, on the other hand, has a well documented conservative record in House -- 90% ACU voting record -- and is thought to be capable of burying Obama in the presidential debates.  His most serious negatives are a tendency to be somewhat unfocused and perhaps have too many solutions to all our many problems.  But, as things stand as of this moment,  Gingrich's strengths seem to be carrying the day an he is now the front runner.

A tale of two cities

Jeffrey Lord was the political director in the Reagan WH and here deconstructs an article and it's author, Alexander Heffner, a Harvard senior and Obama/OWS supporter, i.e., an Ivy League bred socialist.  This article is fairy long but does a very good job of exposing the liberal thinking process that led this country to elect Obama. It is disconcerting to think about all the little Obama clones like Heffner,  running about spouting such utter nonsense with liberal media providing the megaphone.  It better be the case, and hopefully is the case, these young iberals are in the minority of graduates from our elite schools, otherwise we are probably less than a generation away from disaster.