I have noticed a broad and deep knowledge on the part of many RedStaters about the individual candidates in the “Newt-Michele-Rick-Mitt-Ron-Herman-Jon & Gary Show”. Sometimes, the Diary Entries run from the completely banal, and are scarcely more than Drudge Report serigraphs. Oftentimes, however, there are wonderfully written entries about little-known policy statements, or inside anecdotes, or apocryphal little-known tid-bits about the candidates that I did not know, and I have found them  quite helpful in sizing up the men and woman who hope to take over the reigns in January, 2013.

For example, it is through RedState that I learned Rick Perry only recently had back surgery, and has been muscling through the rigors of a campaign in spite of it. I first read about the true narrative of the Newt Gingrich divorce-on-a-death-bed from a diary way back in June, I think. It is on these pages that I first became aware of, and knowledgeable about, Herman Cain. RedState, in this sense, is a very valuable and though-provoking  resource.

I think I may be settling into the Newt Camp, and I need some input.

I’d been fairly smitten with Michele Bachmann, dating back to her vigorous and robust battle against Obamacare. At a time when most Republicans were willing to sit down, shut up, and resign themselves to being some sort of downtrodden regional political party, Michele Bachmann was a voice in the conservative wilderness. She was a fighter, and — at the time– all the conservative fighters appeared to be women. I’ve not heard a single policy statement of hers that does not comport with my own.

To my knowledge, Bachmann has never been a supporter of gigantic federal responses to invented climate-change hysteria. She is stridently pro-life and pro-traditional family. She was against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and I remember her sounding the warning siren about the blank check we eventually gave to Hank Paulson. I found her articulate, passionate and her background as a tax litigator and small business owner gave her a deep well of real-life experience. And, as a consistent winner in a congressional district not wholly given to electing thoroughgoing conservatives, she seemed like a good bet against Barack Obama.

I think this all –pretty much– remains true today.

I’ve tempered my support of Bachmann, though, with knowledge that this would be her first major-league executive gig. Not that I think she would not be up to the task, but, with so little time remaining to fix this nation, we will have to hit the ground running. I’m not sanguine of the depth of the well Bachmann will have from which to draw to find exceptionally skilled folks to fill so many crucial posts. Reagan, for example, had an entire stable of Californians on hand, ready to move. When Barack Obama is packed off to Illinois again, we need a “nation in exile” ready to plunge into the gap, and that means a broad and deep depth of knowledge and experience.

So, I think I might rather see Bachmann as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. Wouldn’t that be a wondrous thing?

But, as I say, I need input.

I think I am on verge here, seven weeks out from the actual commencement of the winnowing, of supporting Newt Gingrich for the Republican Nomination for President.

I’ve been a Gingrich fan since he was elected to follow Dick Cheney into the Minority Whip position in 1989. Most observers thought he was too activist a conservative for the job, but, through hard campaigning, he won the post. The article he wrote for Reader’s Digest in 1994 to explain the Contract with America was brilliant in both its content and its staccato  prose. He is the only national figure on the stage today that has made meaningful, lasting reform in our federal system when congress overhauled Welfare in 1995.

The fact is, Newt Gingrich’s bona fides as a genuine leader of the Conservative Vanguard for the past thirty years cannot be questioned.

He has taken the slings and arrows. He has been tempered by the fire of battle. He know what it means to be flayed alive by the monsters in the popular media and culture. Through it all, he remains rock-steady and congenial. He seems approachable, and dignified. And the depth of his experience cannot be gainsaid.

But, I can still be persuaded. And I would appreciate any feedback, about any announced GOP candidate that y’all think might be helpful and germane.

If this is an “open thread”, then so be it. I’m not talking, though, about the bumper-stickers and slogans: I’m talking about the substance, about fact, logic and reason.

What are your thoughts? I genuinely, sincerely, want to know…