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You simply don’t have a clue about Newt’s long record. Articles described him as the hard line conservative rebel in the House coming up in the ‘80s. He was the OPPOSITE of establishment and a careerist. There was no reason for him to engage in the battle with Bush, Sr. over Bush, Sr.’s raising taxes if all he cared about was his career. He risked everything to stand on principle there and is still paying for it to this day from the establishment. The ONLY specific you offered is that Newt backed one measly House candidate you didn’t feel is conservative enough. But Newt, as the guy who built the Republican majority after 40 years being out of power, would never back an independent candidate over a Republican. He doesn’t believe third party efforts like that help our movement in the long run.

Please point to the times in Newt’s 20-year career in the House when he showed he wasn’t committed to conservatism. He forced a Democrat president to run an even more fiscally conservative administration than arguably even Reagan or G. W. Bush did. He put up the Contract with America in 1994 and EVERY ITEM was voted on as promised.

You seem to have had a mythical rewriting of history drummed into your head by Newt’s opponents. I’ve looked into so many of these vague assertions and rumors that come up about Newt from time to time, and almost all are trumped up nonsense, spin and half-truths. The only thing you can point to is that throughout his career, he’s had some sympathy with the academic viewpoint on environmentalism even going back to his college professor days, but his voting record throughout his career reflects that, has never been radical or extreme, and he’s moved away from that, as has almost everybody now that the science on things like climate change has shifted. Not to mention, he’s been pushing for drilling and energy exploration since before Obama was even in office.

Please tell me where Newt falls short on social conservatism. I believe he has a 98+% pro-life rating. He passed two partial-birth abortion bans even though Clinton opposed them at that time. He won the support of influential Iowa social conservatives because his plan to deal with activist judges was thought to be the ONLY way conservatives will ever make any headway on these issues going forward.

As for me, I don’t care what mistakes Newt made in his personal relationships. The country is in far too many crises right now to reject the best man for fixing things because of something in his personal life that has no effect on my life whatsoever. And I’m not under the illusion that anyone is perfect morally. If you took the worst things anyone has done in their life and made them public, no one could get elected in this country.