Way too long, but the writer captures the calculus that is Newt’s candidacy: man has lived a long time in the public eye, has done a lot of good, had made a lot of mistakes, has a ton of knowledge.
I have yet to see a single anti-Gingrich editorial that was honest about both sides of the ledger. And there are two sides to the ledger no doubt.
Being a Newt guy and Catholic, I find this article very much to my liking. Newt will be best on fighting the tide against radical secularism which seeks to restrict the ‘freedom of religion’ to one of ‘private practice of religion’. As for Romney, his New Hampshire Governorship and being in favor of things that are clearly against his Mormon religion(abortion,gay marriage, etc) puts him in the form factor of a Nancy Pelosi...and untrustworthy, despite a rather recent conversion to ‘core republicanism’... what about the core values of his religion.
Nevertheless, he’d make a good second choice, mainstream Republican who will be weak on social issues, and 2nd rate on fiscal issues, but traditionally a solid republican, but a less than solid conservative. The problem with this type is that they collapse or bargain off important social and fiscal issues near and dear to the conservative faithful.