Presidential Candidates

We have two Republican Presidential candidates: Romney and not-Romney. The not-Romney flavor of the week is Michele Bachmann Rick Perry Herman Cain Newt Gingrich.

Michele Bachmann started out as the Sarah Palin who was in the race candidate, but she gaffed a bit overmuch. She won the Ames, Iowa straw poll. And Rick Perry entered the race at roughly the same time, after guaranteeing Texans he wouldn’t, and immediately supplanted Bachmann as the not-Romney front-runner. But Perry’s big government Trans-Texas Corridor and crony-capitalism Gardasil problems, compounded by his denigration of the vast majority of Americans (more importantly, the vast majority of Conservatives) cost him his front-runner status.

Enter Herman Cain as the not-Romney front-runner. His 9-9-9 plan was enticing but it depends on being a stepping stone to elimination of the Federal income tax. When has Big Government ever eliminated a huge form of money-sucking? Never happened and likely never will; therefore, a new form of money-sucking that doesn’t immediately eliminate an old form will only be permanently added to the old form, thus killing more productivity and further impoverishing Americans. Cain’s lack of foreign policy understanding is another major failing.

Enter Newt Gingrich as the new not-Romney front-runner. The man who sat on the couch with Nancy Pelosi and declared Global Warming to be a major issue that Government needed to fix. He has later apologized for that major fiasco. He’s also the man who endorsed DeDe Scozzafava for NY-23 over the Conservative candidate. It sure didn’t help when she bowed out and immediately endorsed the DEMOCRAT candidate instead of the Conservative candidate. Then there’s Newt’s moral failings in his personal life. His adulterous activities while his then-wife was very sick.

Mitt Romney, of course, is a huge NO to any Conservative. His RomneyCare, his pro-abort/anti-abort/pro-abort/anti-abort stance, his Big Government Can stance, his “whatever position you have is what I have today” stance. And Jon Huntsman is Mitt Romney without the cache or the cash.

No matter who the not-Romney front-runner is, and there have been several, Romney cannot get out of the mid-20s, despite running for President for 6 years. There’s good reason. Romney is bad for the country. Romney, who will never be considered a Conservative, would do serious damage to the grass-roots Conservative movement should he be elected — while simultaneously continuing the serious damage Obama has done to the country. No, we need to choose a seriously flawed Conservative out of the bunch of seriously flawed Conservatives, and not a “finger in the air” hyper-moderate like Romney.

But that’s just it. Which seriously flawed Conservative will eventually stick as the not-Romney candidate? And will the Conservative voters — whose numbers far outweigh the moderate Republicans — coalesce around a single not-Romney?