I am with you on that as I have posted before. I have no doubt that these folks left in the race will sell us out in a heartbeat under pressure, Romney and Newt being the two less principled of the bunch. Paul is the only one of the group that would fight the statists against big government as Club for Growth has stated, and he is no option (no help) because he comes off as a nut-job and I seriously doubt he wants to be POTUS anyway.
I remember 2007 and the theme was “Don't worry, Fred Thompson will save us”. 2011 theme was “Don't worry Palin will save us”. Well you and I know that no-one will save us. Romney has the $$$ and the rest are not inspiring.
You can't have candidates as flawed as Romney and Newt representing the only alternative party to Democrats. It's a gift to Democrats.
The problem, which this election is clearly highlighting, is that there is a growing fissure between statists and small-governmentalists. And it’s found throughout the political spectrum, left and right. It’s becoming increasingly impossible for any candidate to attract both sides in any of the political parties.
On the right, social conservatives are more apt to support an ever more powerful, centralized government... for only that size government is capable of delivering what they want.
After all, how can you eliminate abortion unless you there is one law over all the land proclaiming it illegal... and how can you enforce it without monitoring every woman and doctor at all times, coupled with a large enough police force to arrest them before it happens?
And that costs money. A lot of money. Money that will come from higher taxes.
And on the left, you see this play out between the communists/socialists/fascists/race baiters/unions/environmentalists and the hippy drippy ‘my body is a temple and I can do what I want with it’ crowd.
To be sure, it’s fairly unbalanced between the two parties... with more small-governmentalists in the Republican party than Democrat party, and vice versa in the Democrat party. But there is enough of the opposite in each party to play spoiler. Which is why the Republicans have managed to screw the pooch in 2008... and will probably do it again in 2012.