We heard the same sorts of objections to McCain in 2008, yet he still won the primary. Romney has a ton of money and is running against the strongest of GOP opposition.

I would, however, caution you against the 2016 primary fantasy if Romney does get elected. Even Jimmy Carter couldn’t be primaried, and he was a terrible president who was disliked by his Democrat own House Speaker.

to turn his ship around. If Rick wins Michigan and even gets close in AZ, it is likely all over. No more debates to swing voters/make mistakes, only a week until Super Tuesday (not enough time to blunt momentum from a MI win), and a media that will cram the MI upset story down everyone’s throats for that week.

He was on Hannity yesterday during my drive home. Hannity played the Restore our Future ad and challanged him on his big spending record. To Santurom’s credit, he admitted his votes for NCLB and Medicare Part D were mistakes. He went on to mention that he didn’t sponsor or write any spending bills, just voted for him. He cited the ACU conservative grades, and other such and such. I’m not sold on Santurom. I still see him as a big time [political] loser. I can’t vote for him in the Virginia primary anyway – which makes me think he never considered himself to be a serious candidate – leaving me Romney and one not-Romney.

krish comes here periodically to promote Santorum over Romney,

krish is a cunning Lefy infiltrator, but that’s OK.

krish wants Santorum to win because he/she thinks Romney would be a tougher foe for Obama. I think krish may be right but don’t know.

krish has expressed no views I’ve seen on Gingrich. I’m guessing the Left sees it this way: Newt > Romney. In other words, the Left believes Romney’s the toughest opponent of all for Obama…because he’s the most APPARENTLY like Obama.

Electability means somewhat more to the Left than to the Right. I wonder about this.

Romney is the most electable according to conventional wisdom, but in fact polls are showing Romney and Santorum pulling about the same amount of votes vs Obama puts a question mark in that argument.

“Don’t you remember that it’s this style of Republicanism ”

REALLY!?! We nominated a guy who was NOT a Santorum, and gee I thought the worst financial crisis blowing up 6 weeks before the election had something to do with Obama’s “CHANGE” theme working. Silly me.

The electability arguments might be valid, but it cuts both ways: For every upscale social liberal Santorum might lose, he could gain downscale blue collar voters susecptible to the anti-1% campaign Obama will run against Romney.
If Romney was the most likeable,engaging, superb candidate, he’d be cleaning up right now.

But when you say stuff like …

“Santorum believes what he says” as an indictment of Santorum, the rest of us find endearing that he actually is a real conservative who we dont have to question. Romney has flip-flopped his way into a corner, creating an aura of pliant pandering.

Being authentic does make a candidate more trusted and therefore more appealling.

Santorum is the most legitimate all-around conservative in the race. newt’s gone off reservation on globaloney stuff, with Pelosi, he’s stood with Hillary and Al Sharpton touting dubious ideas, and he attacked Romney on immigration – from the left. But that’s not Newt’s real problem – it’s electability.

“Romney is a moderate who’ll be too scared not to enact some conservative reforms because he wants to win re-election and he’ll be easy to primary in 2016.”

The idea that a President could be ‘primaried’ and you could then go on and win the election is an absurd fantasy.

If Romney wins, we are stuck with him, like GHWBush, Nixon, GWB, or Reagan. Which of those 4 he is most like is TBD.

Current AG and former Senator Mike Dewine switches endorsement from Romney to Santorum in Ohio.

I see a lot of hand waving on who is better than who here. Maybe we can get the for/against evidence in one place and make a more objective assessment. Reply to my “Objective Candidate Comparison…” diary entry, and I’ll tallly the scores.

And chicken out and remain within our comfort zones alongside the establishment–the weary sense of resignation it’s precisely looking for in this war of attrition agaist those with bold conservative ideas.

No, we can’t POSSIBLY go for Santorum. It’s got to be Romney . . . either now or eventually. Sure, it will be Romney. It’s got to be Romney. He’s the “inevitable” nominee, remember? The big “businessman”?

All this rise in the polls for Santorum . . . sure, that’s just momentary flirtation. It can’t be real. It can’t endure. Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich . . . we’ve seen it all. We’re all just gonna end up voting for Romney anyway, right?

Sure I “like” Santorum, as much as I have “liked” the others, but when it comes down to it, I JUST DON’T BELEIVE WE CONSERVATIVES CAN WIN. So, my money’s secretly or not-so-secretly on the Massachusetts liberal, and I stand in good company, don’t I? Even “conservative” isolationist Pat Buchanan supports Romney, as does The Donald. Who am I to disagree? So, I’m gonna give up, play it safe, and fold.

(So goes the psychological warfare, and it looks like the weary are slowly surrendering to the notion of Romney “inevitability,” however creative and “purist” they try to sound with their varied rationalizations.)

The truth is, Romney CAN be soundly defeated if enough of us in the conservative base strongly and unwaveringly unite before ONE conservative candidate instead of being scattered like sheep and spooked by every disagreeable utterance of the lib media and the regular BUT IRRELEVANT pundits and commentators on Romney-friendly Fox Noise and the like. We need to shut out the static from these naysayers against conservatism and keep focused on the mission to nominate a conservative. It will happen if we don’t freak out or fold under the toxic, defeatist air that’s evidently being circulated.

To recap:

It’s not: “We’ll fight, we’ll fight, we’ll fight but know in our feable hearts that Romney will become the eventual nominee.”

It’s: “Romney can and will be defeated because we the conservative base say so!”