They did not gather in their millions across the village green of America because the Congress did not put the decimal point in the right place, the Tea Party exists out of the conviction that they must save the Republic.
So they seek policies toward that end and those policies inevitably are conservative policies because conservatism is patriotic and prudent. But they are not conservatives who seek conservative policies, they are patriots who seek national salvation.
When they judge a presidential candidate they will not measure him against a conservative matrix, they are going to ask themselves whether he can save the country. In other words, above all they want a man of vision, a man who can articulate that vision, a man who can carry the country.
Gov. Perry simply disqualified himself from that description. Newt Gingrich among all the candidates alone possesses the potential to be great. He could also be a great disappointment. But we must take the chance because a business as usual president simply is not the man for the times. There is a sense that this is a time of destiny for Gingrich.
To offer the following observation is knowingly to court the cheap and easy rebuke but it nevertheless must be said: the American people are awakening to the danger which is buffeting them from abroad and from within. They fear for their country and for their children. They are turning to a man whom they would not otherwise consider normal times. The historical parallel is Winston Churchill in 1939-1940.
This is not to say that Gingrich is in the same class with Churchill but the resemblance is remarkable. Both are possessed of the highest intellect, both are successful authors, both have vast parliamentary experience, both are seemingly controversial, both are accused of being fountains of bad as well as great ideas, both are masters of oratory, both have been cast into the wilderness and come back, both have been accused of ideological impurity, Churchill having crossed the aisle twice, both have farsighted vision.
England would never have turned to Winston Churchill if it were not the hour of her greatest peril. Newt Gingrich is not Winston Churchill but he might just be Margaret Thatcher. The rest of the field cannot even compete in the same league. If we entrust Gingrich with the office and he missteps at least we will have taken our best shot. It is not ideological purity that we need to save the country but leadership, even charisma. We have no choice but to take the risk of nominating Gingrich just as England had no choice but to turn to the one man that could save her.
This is why The Tea Party is able to embrace Gingrich and this is why the base of the Republican Party is even now embracing Gingrich, and this is why he will prevail in the election. It is not just a matter of eliminating the other candidates, that is not why England turned to Churchill, there were, after all, other men of substance but there was no one else who held the promise that Churchill held to save the world-and no one carried such a risk as Churchill.
They had to assume the risk to get Churchill.
