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Analyzing the 2012 GOP Field – Palin, Trump, Romney, Huckabee on top

My take ... Huckabee couldn't beat McCain and McCain was no friend of Conservatism. Sorry, Huckabee, I like you personally. Not only could Romney not even beat Huckabee, but his healthcare plan has a reputation almost as bad as Obama's. Sorry, Romney, you are a complete non-starter. If it comes down to you and Obama, we get Obama (and hopefully gridlock) for another four years. I respect Trump as a businessman. I have no problem with seeking his advice in commerce. And I appreciate him putting Obama on the hot seat with the birth certificate (though it should have been about parentage and not scraps of paper). But we shoot ourselves in solidly in the foot if we confuse Trump with a "conservative". He isn't. He is exactly the shrewd kind of businessman the liberals associate with Republicans. They think he'll kill every whale and burn every redwood if that's what it takes to make a dollar -- heck, maybe he would! He might be able to fix the economy, but in the bigger picture he'll destroy the reputation of Conservative Republicans for decades to come and make winning further elections all but impossible. Short term gain; long term pain.

In this playing field the *only* candidate worthwhile is Palin. I do hope other *real* conservatives like Bachmann, Cain, West, Ryan, etc throw in too. It'll make the debates far more informative. But if all we are given to choose from are Trump, Huckabee, or Romney ... I will write Palin in.

I agree with you on process-a process of elimination-but I disagree with your conclusion.

Every one of the potential candidates is flawed, Sarah Palin not the least among them. She is not flawed ideologically but with respect to electability. She has steadfastly declined to shape her delivery, her forensics if you will, to the point at which she can project gravitas, the level of seriousness and competence that independents always yearn for in a president because they vote the man, not his ideology.

Your analysis omits entirely Newt Gingrich. Like the other candidates, he too is flawed. Every time I posit his candidacy as the most plausible on balance from all perspectives among the current field, I get in response a photo of him sitting next to Nancy Pelosi on a couch. I never get any reasons or discussion of his conservative biography or a commonsense acceptance of his forensics skills. No acknowledgment is ever made of his intellectual capacity or his ability to debate. Sometimes, reference is made to his zipper problems. Yet, the same conservatives will strain at a gnat and swallow a camel as they puke all over their keyboards at the mention of Newt Gingrich but swoon at the idea of the mountebank, Trump.

By my process of elimination and based on the situation as we know it today, Newt Gingrich emerges as the most plausible candidate because his baggage does not outweigh his conservatism and his electability. This is a subjective judgment and I fully understand that other Freepers depart from me on this conclusion.

What I do not understand is the absence of engagement on the issue, the reflexive rejection of Newt Gingrich, often on mistaken assumptions while indulging a myopia for the weaknesses of the rest of the field.