The main reason for this is that Romney won’t provide any contrast when compared to Obama.  There will be virtually no debate on the healthcare issue because they both have supported the same model.  There is almost no debate on taxes as they both raise taxes.

I personally will not support a republican candidate that is not a conservative.  We’ve done that in the past and we weakened the party and country for many years.  Clearly it hasn’t gotten bad enough in the country yet and the establishment republicans aren’t committed to winning back the white house. 

The party must begin to embrace serious reform of the primary system.  First and foremost only registered republican votes should count towards delegates awarded.  Open primaries are fine but it clear that counting those votes towards delegates awarded is diluting the talent pool. 

Next is a single day in April or May for the primary.  One election day across the country for all states to vote, any state that tries to move up loses their delegates and they won’t get any say in who the nominee is.  This is needed because it makes absolutely no sense to have a small handful of small states determine who the nominee is and disenfranchise millions of voters across the country who haven’t had the opportunity to vote for the candidate they prefer.

Third is that we abandon this super delegate system.  Everyone’s vote should be equal, no one should have special voting rights at the convention.

Lastly is that all delegates should be awarded on a winner take all basis, if a candidate wins a state, then he gets all the delegates for that state.

So with that we’ll wait until August to put forth an official endorsement but one thing I can promise, it won’t be an endorsement for Mitt Romney.

Rick also a nearly impossible path to 1144 and so does Newt. At this point the only way to prevent Obama from getting four more years is for Rick and Newt to stay. In this race and then make a deal at the convention for Rick to be the nominee. We already know Mitt can’t beat Obama the only hope is for Rick and Newt together to surpass the 1144 and take the fight to the convention.

Truth be told Newt may make for an entertaining debate with Obama but when it comes to a general election he just brings too much baggage.  Santorum is the only candidate that has the conservative credentials to win besides not having the baggage that Newt and Romney both have.  However Romney has too much of a delegate lead for Santorum to overtake him most likely.

Now the only path to Romney winning outright before the convention is for Newt to get out.  In a head to head competition Santorum will probably beat Romney in many places but because of Romney’s delegate lead Santorum most likely won’t overpower Romney in the remaining races thus in a two man race given the states left Romney would likely squeak by and get the 1144 he needs to be the nominee.  However if Newt stays in and it stays a three man race through California in June then Newt and Santorum together siphon enough delegates to prevent Romney from getting a majority.

Then the deal making begins, Santorum and Newt would then need to hammer out an agreement with Newt likely being the VP.  Now Romney shouldn’t be completely left out either, he should have a prominent role at the convention as well as a prominent role in a Santorum administration where he can put many of his economic plans to work.  Probably as Treasury Secretary, then he would most likely be in what is his strongest position. 

Now the elites have told us that we can’t wait until end of August to settle this because we need more time to run against Obama, I disagree.  Santorum would have acres of items to hammer Obama on and Obama would have very little time to respond and convince voters he’s done good things.  He can’t convince them now and he’s not running against anyone.  Romney being the nominee takes too many issues off the table because Romney is not much different than Obama on domestic issues and has a track record to prove it so that neutralizes many of the arguments leveled against Obama.

Newt as the nominee just has too much baggage, wives, misstatements, photo OPs with Nancy Pelosi, etc.  He’ll be fine as a VP because as much as Newt has baggage his statements are nothing compared to Biden, and watching a VP debate between Newt and Biden would be entertaining to say the least.

Santorum is the closest thing to pure as the wind driven snow there is in either party.  He doesn’t have the skeletons in his closet, his voting record is solid that conservatives can get behind him and not so rigid that Reagan Democrats can’t support him.  He’s solid on social issues but voters don’t get the impression that abortion or other social issues will be the centerpiece of his administration.  He doesn’t come of to people like someone that’s just going to show up and try to force a social change.

In short Santorum doesn’t come off as the angry white male, which is why he is the best chance to defeat Obama in November…

So looking at the primaries so far we’ve seen a mixed bag at a state level but dig a little deeper and something really stands out when you analyze things at a county level.  Romney generally wins the counties in the bigger cities and major population centers while Santorum and Gingrich win the rest of the state.

So why is this important you ask.  Well the big reason is that conservative voters tend to not live in the big city and larger population centers.  They tend to live in the outlying areas, and those voters are not supporting Romney, they are looking and begging for a real conservative and are supporting Santorum or Gingrich in hopes that one of them will be able to muster a solid campaign and be the eventual nominee.

Now on the question of electability the Romney camp likes to point to who can beat Obama in November.  The truth is that going back as far as Iowa before Perry, Bachman, and Huntsman got out of the race Romney even then was the least likely candidate to beat Obama.  The reason being is that traditionally when the republican party nominates a moderate they lose.

Romney is only carrying the population centers in the primaries.  When we get to a general election with Obama those areas are laden with liberals and high union voters and Romney will lose those in a heads up matchup and the conservatives in the outlying areas won’t be beating a path to the polls to vote for Romney.  Sure many will hold their nose and vote for Romney but a lot will stay home, vote third party, and Romney will lose and we get four more years of Obama…

Most of the news about these polls are intended to show all of us that Mitt would win or have the best chance to win against Obama, of course when the nominee is chosen the same polls and media will show that person behind by double digits in the polls.

The polls haven’t been accurate for years and there is really no point in them other than the media uses them to feed their news machine.  Other than that they are meaningless in terms of gauging where the electorate truly is on the issue of who should be the next president.

2008 John McCain – Uh no guess not, with all due respect to McCain’s service to our great country he is just not a leader that Republicans want.

2000 John McCain – See above.

1996 Bob Dole – Again another great man who has served his country well but is not viewed as a conservative.

1992 George HW Bush – Yes I include Bush 41 on this list and the reason being is that in 1988 he ran and was elected largely on Reagan’s coat tails and then spent the next four years as a moderate on domestic issues and was ousted for it in 1992 when he had to run on his own record.

1976 Gerald Ford – Its interesting to note that Ford never won even a statewide election in his political career.  He was elected to the House of Representatives thirteen times but passed up chances to run for the Senate or run for Governor in his native Michigan.  Interesting to note that the Republican establishment chose Ford over Reagan in 1976 leading to its doom and four years of Jimmy Carter.

Not exactly a track record to run on…

Why the history lesson you ask?  Well this year the mainstream media and the unions need to do more work than usual to get Obama re-elected.  Obama’s record is so bad it almost makes the Carter years look like the golden age, in addition to that you have clear and blatant corruption that makes Clinton and Nixon look honest.  Obama doesn’t have a single issue he can successfully run on so when that happens you have to marginalize your competition.  Obama needs to run against Mitt Romney because he knows that conservatives won’t support a Northeast Liberal like Romney, Romney is nothing more than the modern day Bob Dole or the 2012 version of John McCain.

Obama’s greatest fear is that he has to run against a conservative that is a solid debater and someone that can communicate effectively.  Insert Newt Gingrich, now we are aware of Newt’s baggage but you have to admit that he is a solid communicator that makes debates interesting and he would eat Obama for lunch in a debate.  This strikes fear in two groups of people, first the left.  Obama, the media, and the unions can’t afford to have a solid conservative running against Obama in November.  The second group is the blue blood republicans.  Those people that are supposedly the pillars of republican wisdom who don’t want the Reagan conservatives thinking they control this party. 

So while the establishment tries to ram Romney down our throats I remember something I learned from Rush Limbaugh a long time ago.  Conservatism works every time its tried…

On the other side Democrats have a traditional record of being hard core liberal for the primaries which is no real surprise, and they traditionally have hard core left wing views that the majority of the country has rejected time and again but then they run as an outsider, a moderate, and they often succeed in fooling the so called “independents” into believing they’re somehow enlightened which couldn’t be any further from the truth.

So this year the “front runner” Mitt Romney is the liberal candidate attempting to do what traditionally has been unsuccessful on the Republican side. Be liberal, move to the right for the primaries, and then move back center after the nomination is secure. The problem with this line of logic is that it hasn’t ever succeeded. It has failed every time it’s been tried. McCain in 2008, Dole in 1996, Ford in 1976 (even though he was the incumbent because of Nixon’s resignation..) And the list goes on.

So what do we take from history? If voters on the republican side are serious about replacing Obama then they will elect a conservative like Santorum or to a lessor degree Newt in the primaries because those candidates and now Romney will have the best chance to beat Obama in November…

This just further proves that we need some widespread reform of the nominating process. The fact that over 90% of the country won’t get to choose the candidate they want for President. The Northeast Liberal establishment tells us that Romney has the best chance to beat Obama. Unfortunately that’s just not true as Romney has more in common with Obama than different.

Unfortunately my friends it appears to be shaping up as another 2008, 1996, etc where we stand up a weak kneed non conservative to be a sacrificial lamb insuring the re-election of a hard core liberal…

It appears that Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry will be getting out at this point and that does nothing but help Santorum.

Now Romney will win New Hampshire however it will be interesting to see if Santorum can get within 10 points. If he can show strong in New Hampshire then it is possible for him to win South Carolina and Florida.

Going to be an interesting month!

Having a single election day works fine for the general election every four years, why not do the same for the primaries?  If you have say the second Tuesday in March as the primary, or June, etc.  Pick a month in the spring or early summer and set the primary election day.

Nothing against Iowa, New Hampshire, and others but there is absolutely no sense in having a couple of small states making decisions for the whole country, in the early days it made more sense because of travel and things like that where logistically it was difficult to learn about candidates before the primary election but in the modern age where most of the country knows more about these people than we’d ever like to know it seems like it would be fine to have the primary on one day nationwide…