I think Santorum covered who is better equipped to fight mandates and Obamacare last night citing examples with the three candidates.
Newt is not the ideal conservative; that's a given. I think we can all agree that the 2012 campaign season will be the political equivalent of a gang fight. The problem for republicans is, we don't know how to get in the gutter and fight. IMHO, Newt is the only candidate who can take on the dirty dems and come out of it still fighting. In fact, he's the only one who can kick their asses.
There's a long way to go to get America back to its conservative, Constitutional roots. Newt is *not* the guy that's going to get us there but he's the guy that's going to get the ball rolling. Borrowing the GOP's mascot for a simple analogy - how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time....