As usual I agree with virtually everything you say but I will indulge the all too human tendency to comment on the small fraction with which I disagree:
It is Newt above every politician today, except perhaps Obama, who understands the need to popularize policy, yes, to render it down to a bumper sticker if necessary. Let us not forget That the Contract with America which put the Republicans in power in the house after decades was exactly a concise expression of policy directed toward the people in Peoria and it was Gingrich's conception.
Actually, Gingrich has carefully polled many of the issues and urged the Republican Party to adopt the ones that pull in excess of 80 to 90%, such as making English the official language, but the congressional Republicans simply cannot get out of their Beltway mindsets. It is Gingrich who recognizes the indispensability of articulating the issues properly. No one can accuse John Boehner or Mitch McConnell of that sin. Trump knew how to do it but does Pawlenty?
I second Charles Krauthammer's motion to send a posse after Paul Ryan and drag him into the race.
Pawlenty is toast. They don't even have to resort to scandal and character assassination. Did you happen to see Jay Leno last night?
They've affixed to him (and it will stick, ha, ha) with the most damning of labels:
Square.
Dull.
Midwestern.
Boring.
Sarah may be a rabid creationist barefoot-and-in-the-kitchen type (which is why she wants to be the President?? -- cognitive dissonance on steroids); but she can hold a crowd, and has enthusiasm and personal charisma.
Pawlenty is like the narrator of Tristram Shandy who reminded himself to fulfill his marital obligations to his wife by when he re-wound the great grandfather clock on the landing of the staircase every month or two.
If the national mood needed a steady Eddie, he'd win in a landslide; but Obama, in an attempt to follow the destablize-seize power-reign Marxist/Gramscian playbook, have people on a different kind of edge: we are hungry for someone who is on call, not golfing or voting 'PRESENT'; and who is either full of gravitas ...OR... is absolutely resolute and will NOT get knocked back or stopped by anything.
Romney represents (supposedly) gravitas, inasmuch as a slime mold can possess such; Sarah's life is PROOF of the other.
Look for Romney vs. Sarah, with the beltway crowd pushing him on the grounds of supposed fiscal responsibility.
I'm looking forward to schools of little 'cudas ripping chunks out of his political hide.
Cheers!