Searching for the Next Ronald Reagan

I just listened to Newt Gingrich’s CPAC speech and I have to admit I was impressed. Gingrich called for opposition to any federal government stimulus based on spending and criticized the Bush-Obama multi-trillion dollar bailouts of 2008 as well as the Obama socialist stimulus package of last month. He said there are really too parties in this country—one is the party of big government and the other is the party of smaller government and said that over the last several years the GOP had become part of the party of ever bigger government. He said the conservative movement is bigger than the Republican Party and that conservatives need to reach out to Democrats as well as independents to unite against Obama’s attempts to transform our country into a one-party socialist republic. If it weren’t for the fact that Gingrich were an adulterer and thus fails the social conservative’s family values test, I think he would be a real contender for the conservative Republican choice for President.

I will hand it to Romney that he is an excellent speaker having given one of the best speeches of the convention, very telegenic and fairly charismatic. The problem is that anyone who supported the socialist $8.5 trillion bailout really needs to be eliminated from contention for the GOP presidential nomination as it is imperative that we nominate a fiscal conservative if we hope to defeat Obama in 2012. Both Romney and Palin are big government conservatives that supported the Bush-Obama bailout though Palin is wonderful on the life issue. In his CPAC speech this weekend, Romney touted his socialized health care plan and said he supports measures designed to fight non-existant global warming which are anathema to conservatives.

Ron Paul will be too old and while Huckabee is as solid of a fiscal conservative and opponent of the bailouts as Gingrich, too many people think he is a bigot. Meanwhile, Pawlenty and Jindal just do not impress. It seems like we need someone new to enter the presidential race as the conservative champion perhaps staunch conservative leaders--Gov. Sanford (R-SC), Sen. DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) (the most conservative member of the US Senate) or Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). I find it interesting that the most conservative Governor in the country and the most conservative Senators in the United States Senate hail from the same two states. I guess my message is we here in Utah, one of the most conservative states in the country, can and will do better by electing new leaders in the mold of Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Rob Bishop to high office in the near future.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19433.html