Conservatives: Swallow and Pick One

Gingrich, Romney both 'significantly flawed': Charles Krauthammer
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 2, 2011 11:22 AM CST
Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney Both 'Significantly Flawed': Charles Krauthammer
Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney: It looks like a two-man race now.   (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

The Republican race now boils down to Gingrich vs. Romney, writes Charles Krauthammer in the National Review, and he doesn't sound very happy about it. They are "two significantly flawed frontrunners": Romney isn't a "core conservative" or really a core anything, while Gingrich has the conservative bona fides but also a massive ego that takes him to "unconservative places"—teaming with Nancy Pelosi on climate change, for instance. He's apparently trying to show that he transcends mere mortal politics, and it's tough to trust him for fear of where that might take him next. Health care? Energy?

Krauthammer wishes Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, or Chris Christie were around, but knows it's too late. "You play the hand you're dealt." The main imperative for conservatives is to defeat President Obama before he ruins the country, he writes, so voters on the right have to ask themselves two questions in the Mitt-vs-Newt debate: "Who is more likely to prevent that second term? And who, if elected, is less likely to unpleasantly surprise?" Full column here. (More Mitt Romney 2012 stories.)

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