COMMENTARY | William F. Buckley once said, and I paraphrase here, to vote for the most conservative electable candidate. This means that a candidate must be both conservative and electable. In the Republican presidential primary the leading candidates at this time are Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Which man best meets these criteria?
The first criterion for me, as it was for Buckley, is that the candidate must be conservative. Like many conservatives, I am tired of the media and the Republican establishment doing their utmost to pick our nominees. We had a spectacular failure during the last cycle and we can not afford to repeat our mistakes in 2012. That being said, which is the more conservative candidate between Gingrich and Romney? For me, the answer is clearly Gingrich. I doubt that Mr. Romney has any truly deep conservative convictions. If he does, it seems that he conceals them well. However, Mr. Gingrich is not the conservative that he was in the past. With his special order speeches on the floor of the House in the early 1980s, Newt was ably assisting Ronald Reagan in defining conservatism for a generation of Americans. He then cemented this leadership in 1994 as he authored the Contract with America and led Republicans to their first House majority in 40 years. Millions of Americans would support this type of leadership. Unfortunately this Newt Gingrich has somewhat faded with time and has been replaced by a man that likes to speak of right-wing social engineering and stars in commercials with Nancy Pelosi.
The second of Mr. Buckley's criteria is electability. So just who is more electable, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich? The polls would suggest that Romney is more electable. However, when looking at polls one must consider who commissions the polls and the primary reason for their existence. The reason the polls exist is because the media is attempting to influence our decisions regarding potential candidates. The media is pushing Romney on us but did you ever stop to ask yourself why? Conservatives must remember the media is not on our side now nor will they ever be. Rest assured that the media does not want any conservative elected to any office, especially the presidency. Therefore, the only reason that the media would push Romney is because they think that Obama can beat him.
At the risk of obviating my argument, I need to make one final observation. Mr. Gingrich has said that anyone on the debate stage would be better than Obama. I would add that anyone on that stage can defeat Obama in 2012. This year electability is not as important as it would be in other cycles, so vote your conscience.
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