barack obamaAnd then there were four. In less than a month, we’ve seen the GOP presidential candidate pool cut nearly in half, as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman have all cut their losses and suspended their campaigns. Of the four left fighting campaigning, there are two clear frontrunners: Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

Who would have thought that the candidate that came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses would be leading the polls less than a month later? Strange but true: Gingrich is now leading Romney by quite a few percentage points.

Last week, I infamously said on The Hugh Hewitt Show that Newt makes my eye twitch, but the fact of the matter is that they all make my eye twitch. Hello, they’re politicians. Politicians, as a whole, aren’t exactly America’s favorite people at the moment. 

Neither Newt nor Mitt makes my eye twitch quite as much as Barack Obama. However the primary plays out, I think we’re pretty much guaranteed a Republican victory in 2012. We’ve tried the hopey-changey thing, and it turns out that spreading the wealth around doesn’t fix a broken economy. 

Barack Obama did inherit a downward economy from George W. Bush Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but he’s had three years to fix it. Instead, he’s taken over one sixth of the economy with his massively unpopular Obamacare, put more people on food stamps than ever before, and generally made businesses terrified to hire new employees.

Of course none of the Republican candidates are perfect, because people aren’t perfect. The best president we could have realizes that, and governs accordingly. The President of the United States needs to understand that the people need to be given freedom to try things, succeed or fail, and pick themselves up by the bootstraps when necessary.

Barack Obama does not have faith in the American people to take care of themselves, which is condescending and belittling. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney want Americans to be free to pursue their dreams, without crushing taxes should those dreams come true. 

Wherever the GOP nomination lands at the end of this primary process, I will gladly vote for him on November 6. It’s better than the alternative. 

 

This post is part of a weekly conversation with our 5 Moms Matter 2012 political bloggers. Read the original question and find links to all their responses here: What If Newt Gingrich Wins the Republican Nomination?


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