While a lot can still happen in the GOP primary, it is starting to look more and more like a contest between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. As my friend Guy Benson discussed as guest host of the Hugh Hewitt radio show Friday, Newt has risen from almost nowhere after his campaign seemed to have collapsed at its beginning. Romney, on the other hand, started as the top competitor for the 2012 nomination, and he has survived all the non-Romney challengers so far. Enter Newt as the current, and perhaps final non-Romney.
Charles Krauthammer framed the Mitt vs. Newt contest yesterday. His bottom line was this:
My own view is that Republicans would have been better served by the candidacies of Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan or Chris Christie. Unfortunately, none is running. You play the hand you’re dealt. This is a weak Republican field with two significantly flawed front-runners contesting an immensely important election. If Obama wins, he will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return (which is precisely his own objective for a second term).
Every conservative has thus to ask himself two questions: Who is more likely to prevent that second term? And who, if elected, is less likely to unpleasantly surprise?
George Will seems to believe that neither Romney nor Gingrich would prevent the slide away from limited government. This past week, Will was on Laura Ingraham’s show and had some troubling predictions about the future of conservatism based on what the presidential choices seem to be right now:
“Ask yourself this: Suppose Gingrich or Romney become president and gets re-elected – suppose you had eight years of this,” Will said. “What would the conservative movement be? How would it understand itself after eight years? I think what would have gone away, perhaps forever, is the sense of limited government, the Tenth Amendment, Madisonian government of limited, delegated and enumerated powers — the sense conservatism is indeed tied to limitations on federal authority and the police power wielded by Congress — that would all be gone. It’s hard to know what would be left.”
Will was critical of Newt, and a few weeks prior, he slammed Romney in a column, comparing him with Michael Dukakis. In that column, Will predicted that having Romney at the top of the Republican ticket would hurt the party by deflating the voting base needed to propel lower ticket candidates.
I don’t in any way intend to dishearten anyone about 2012, but I think a lot of people right now are wondering, in a situation that seems like it should be a slam dunk to replace President Obama in 2012, is this the best we can do? A lot of people are quick to point out that the Republican field will be deep and talented in 2016 and 2020, but if George Will is correct, how much will that matter?
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