As to your point #4: you and Michelle Bachmann are wrong. Newt has a 98% pro-life record in Congress. He has always been pro-life, and still
is.
As to your point about “realists”: politics is the art if the possible. Somebody is going to get elected POTUS in 2012. When you come up with a more conservative candidate who can actually go head to head with Obama and against the $1B Obama campaign machine, let me know.
My question is what will Newt do as President? When will political expediency trump his personal views, his political promises, his conservative principles? I don't know.
My point about the "realists", is that what they actually do, doesn't end up in a success and therefore really isn't very "realist", then is it? Was supporting Dede Scozzafava in the end "realist"?
My question is what is beyond the pale for the "realists"? David Duke was beyond the pale, while Dede Scozzafava and partial birth abortion are not? Please explain.
I'm leaning toward Santorum, Bachmann and Perry in that order.