I would have gladly supported anyone who ran in the primary except Romney, Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. I was for Newt most of the time but Perry became my second choice. Santorum is totally acceptable. I don’t disqualify someone because on maybe 10% of votes they got pulled in the wrong direction. He is willing to get out there and defend his principles, not simply cave in every time the going gets tough. That’s one of the most important criteria for being a president, to be a leader, not just a finger-in-the-wind follower.
I don’t care who is the “front runner.” What if it was Hillary Clinton? When would the candidate go to far to the left for you? Romney’s way far over the line for me based on his record as governor. He was socially and fiscally liberal. And on military and national security credibility, he’s shown no more prowess than Herman Cain did, and disturbingly even supported Obama’s domestic security initiative.
We weren’t even able to pull Bush, Sr. to the conservative side even after he promised not to raise taxes. We’d have better luck pushing Obama to be conservative because our party might actually fight for it. They’ll just be rubber-stamping everything Romney does as “team players,” not to mention many want a more liberal platform anyway so they can keep up their cocktail party cred.
You mention Rick Perry and I can’t help thinking that it is we conservatives who put us all in this fine pickle we find ourselves in.
We (though not me) lied about Rick Perry on Guardisil and we (though not me) lied about Rick Perry on border issues...
...and now we’ve got a choice between Howdy Doody Rick and Magic Underwear Willard.
We are so f*’d. And we did it to ourselves by not giving GOOD people a chance.