If I could wave a magic wand and get one of those three to be the only candidate other than Romney, it would be Rick Perry. He’s the best of the three on limited government, on growth, on policy, and on executive experience.
He’s the only one who counters Romney’s perceived “strengths”. Perry is as much of an outsider as Romney. He has much more and better executive experience. The only thing he doesn’t have is private executive experience, but neither do the other two guys.
The problem with Perry, when compared to the other two, is that he isn’t polling as well as the other two. But that was what the magic wand was for, to make Perry the front-runner. If Perry was the front-runner, he’d BE the front-runner, as the flock would swarm back to him, and he’d beat Romney easily enough.
Perry is also the least likely to implode of these three. Gingrich is an implosion waiting to happen. (Not a “senior moment” implosion, I mean actual proposals that turn people off).
I presume that Gingrich and Santorum are going to get the nod here, Gingrich because he WAS the frontrunner, and Santorum because he won Iowa. That’s not really a good way to choose a candidate, but whatever.
If not Perry, I hope for Santorum, because while he and Newt are both big-government types, Santorum is more circumspectful and less likely to be so certain he is right when he isn’t. Both of them are rated poorly on growth, but Santorum is more likely to hire good advisors who will help him out, while Gingrich is unlikely to surround himself with people who would disagree with him.
This is exactly why Newt isn't my pick at this point (Perry was, but that may change). I can overlook Newt's past history, but i think we need stability, dogged determination, and trustworthiness right now more than we need good debate skills and superior intellect.
Intellectual giftedness & creativity is associated with impulsivity, which seems to be Newt's gift/curse. Simply put, I can't trust him. I'd be afraid we would regret it later after a few incidents where he "spoke his mind." Four years is a long time for someone to keep their creative genius reigned in. That, plus he's too easily portrayed as "whining," whether that's justified or not. That's another gift/curse for incredibly smart people: they often don't understand why the rest of us can't "see it" like they can so clearly. I think that's what is happening when people say he's "whining" -- he's just frustrated that the rest of us aren't up to speed!
I'd love to see him in a VP role, one where he can contribute his superior intellect; yet, be in a position where a possibility for an impulsive implosion could be more contained. I don't think his ego would let him be in a VP position, though, unless he thought the tradeoff would be worth the chance to get back at Pelosi. ;)