At this point, I don't see how anyone other than Mitt Romney wins the GOP nomination without going to a brokered convention. Romney's 386 delegates are 138 more than Santorum and Gingrich combined. It's not certain either "Not Mitt" candidate could beat Romney in a straight up contest, but after Gingrich's completely unsurprising win in Georgia last night, we won't find out. If he has any bounce at all, it'll come at the expense of Santorum over the next week as a few more southern states vote, giving Newt even more reasons to stay in it. Once March is over, though, the race moves into decidedly Romney territory, with a number of those being winner take all.
A lot of folks are not particularly thrilled about Romney winning. I'm not giddy about him, but I cannot possibly imagine Independents voting for Rick Santorum. The 2006 PA Senate race shows how unelectable he really is. Santorum's conservative record is as spotty as Romney's. And the biggest kick in the nuts is that he's running as a social conservative. Got news, people: that's not the winning issue of 2012. Most independents do not want to trade one guy meddling in their pocketbooks for another meddling in their bedroom.
Gingrich has just as many problems as Romney as well. Hey, who worked with one of the most hated companies in America that brought on the housing market bubble and collapse? And who has a record of dysfunctional leadership? Speaker Gingrich. And is he going to attack Obama on the individual mandate? Hell no, the man supports it. Yes, he's better at debates, but there will be all of 2, maybe 3 with the President. We absolutely must have somebody who can run a campaign efficiently to stand up against the Obama machine; Romney's the only one who has consistently done that so far.
And Ron Paul...you just keep being Ron Paul. Actually, no, just go away. I'm a libertarian and you're the single greatest thing holding that ideology back. Publishing racist material will automatically disqualify you from being a person worth listening to. Now if Rand Paul could step up, that might be interesting, but regardless of who takes the mantle, it is imperative that Ron Paul go away for the sake of liberty.
Really, compared to the alternative, Romney's not so bad. The best thing we Tea Party types can do is avoid the worst possible situation of having Obama nominate more people to courts over another four years. We need to come out in numbers to win the White House and, perhaps more importantly, put liberty loving citizens in the House and the Senate, just in case Romney does let out his inner RINO. But we cannot despair because our most likely candidate is not the solid conservative we might wish. We have to be the realist we are and make the most of what we can.
Our rallying cry that will work with independents is not going to be "Get Romney/Santorum/Gingrich In"; it's going to be "Get Obama Out!" Going to a brokered convention with Romney leading and having GOP insiders pick anyone but the guy with the most votes is an absolutely horrible idea; I haven't heard people advocating it yet, but it's not beyond the more outspoken Not Mitt crowd to do so (looking at you, RedState).
Again, a Romney win is not my wet dream, but the other two viable choices are not particularly conservative, either. The passionately Not Mitt crowd needs to come to terms that Romney will likely win so that we can put the energy in tossing Obama out and weeding out the foes of liberty in Congress as best we can.
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