Questioning the capacity of Republican primary voters

If you like the Illinois GOP, you’ll love Mitt Romney, Part 2.

Okay, let me get this straight. Mitt Romney and his dishonest financial supporters (his own campaign and the independent “Super PAC”) spend millions and millions of dollars lying about Newt Gingrich – and the Republican primary electorate believes the lies. For the second time in one primary season the national polls reflect a drop in Gingrich’s support after an aerial bombardment of inaccurate statements belched out by the pro-Romney forces.

If this is the judgment level of Republican primary voters, then it’s easy to see why the GOP hasn’t had a top shelf presidential nominee – one who fully supports the party’s platform – since 1980/84.

The pro-Romney forces are fully backed up by the “neutral” but clearly anti-Gingrich forces. Many prominent members of the so-called “conservative” commentariat act like a pack of “mean girls” as in the 2004 film, ridiculing Newt as someone who is not up to their standards. The irony of this, of course, is that unlike the 30 years of failure on the part of the commentators, Gingrich actually has policy successes to his credit.

How have those commentators failed? As I’ve noted before, government at all levels has been growing in size and scope for decades in spite of the daily work of the elite “conservative” pundit class. For this reason it’s easy to speculate that an unconscious sense of inferiority is driving this group of opiners to attack Newt for almost everything he says and does.

For those younger commentators who instinctively see Newt as un-cool, Mark Levin outlined it beautifully in this audio clip where he pointed out that Newt Gingrich was achieving actual success in advancing the conservative cause before they were even old enough to “wipe themselves.” (Sorry. That’s what he said.)

This Gingrich Derangement Syndrome, now on display for all to see, almost brought us to the brink of nominating Mitt Romney, a man whose dishonesty is either completely or mostly ignored by those professing to be supporters of traditional values.

What about Newt’s checkered past, you ask? Shouldn’t these same primary voters and pundits judge him on his behavior? Yes, of course. But they also need to make a judgment about the man he is now. For my fellow Christians who find this extraordinarily difficult, you might want to learn a little about the Apostle Paul’s life. If truly bad behavior is an eternal disqualification, then you need to rip out a good part of your New Testament.

Is Newt Gingrich equivalent to Saint Paul? Read Paul’s own words and then you tell me if Paul sees himself as superior to anyone else (see Philippians chapter 3).

We are not choosing between who the candidates were fifteen years ago, but who they are right now. While Newt has an entire section of his website devoted to confessing his personal and political sins, Mitt Romney continues to lie – and not just about Newt Gingrich’s record but also about his own recent past.

If you haven’t read Amy Contrada’s book “Mitt Romney’s Deception: His Stealth Promotion of ‘Gay Rights’ and ‘Gay Marriage’ in Massachusetts,” you need to. Amy has two shorter versions of the work available in e-book here and here.

I realize that questioning the attention span or intelligence of the GOP primary electorate doesn’t make me popular. But this country cannot afford four more years of Obama – and Mitt Romney carries far more present-day “baggage” into the general election than either of his real primary opponents. No offense to Ron Paul, who I like, but he’s not going anywhere.

If Romney would somehow pull off a victory in November, the danger is even worse as this nation cannot afford another failed Republican administration. Why? Because when George H.W. Bush failed we got Bill Clinton. Speaker Dennis Hastert failed and we got Nancy Pelosi. George W. Bush failed and we got Barack Obama. See a pattern there? With each successive Republican failure the Democrat that gets elected is even more liberal/socialist.

If you think that we can’t get worse than Obama, you forget that he’s incompetent in his salesmanship of liberalism/socialism. There are better salesmen and saleswomen out there. And if you don’t think Americans will make such a bad decision – you’re ignoring every bad precedent since FDR.

Up next: Romney’s lying is only matched by his confusion about religious liberty, human behavior, and morality.