A dear friend of mine — not unlike many of us — married the wrong person his first go-around. Everything about this woman just made good, practical sense. She was, in many ways, the answer to many of his personal shortcomings, and from a financial and lifestyle perspective, it seemed like the right thing to do.

He said that he could “learn to love her,” but sadly, this proved not to be the case, and the marriage dissolved.

When I hear Mitt Romney essentially suggest that conservatives will learn to like him once he’s the nominee, it sets off all kinds of alarms in my head.

Learn to?

How far we’ve come since 2010 when we were willing to nominate even dismal candidates such as Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, if for no other reason than that their ideology matched up with ours. I’m not suggesting we dumb ourselves down like that again. We definitely learned our lesson. Ideology must be balanced with intellect and political savvy, but even as those races were lost, enormous gains were acquired. We gained ourselves the Marco Rubios and the Rand Pauls that infiltrated Washington and sent a message: Conservatives mean business.

Two years later, when the stakes have never been higher, we stand poised to put a Massachusetts moderate up against the most liberal president this nation has ever known. Why? Because it’s the safe choice.

Thanks. I feel so inspired.

It’s time for Mitt Romney to give us substantive reasons why he should be the nominee. I don’t want to hear “1144″ anymore. At this point, it’s meaningless to me. It’s just a number.

I need Governor Romney to agree that Romneycare is bad policy. I need him to admit that flirting with environmentalist extremism was a bad idea. I need him acknowledge that he nickel-and-dimed Massachusetts taxpayers with exorbitant fee hikes. He needs to apologize for not speaking out on the death tax fight in Massachusetts — what kind of “conservative” takes “no position” on such a fundamental issue? Oh, and stop bragging about balancing the budget in Massachusetts, as if it was a choice. It’s the law. Michael Dukakis balanced the budget for 10 years … does that make him a conservative?

It’s no wonder voter turnout was low in Mississippi and Alabama. The media and the Republican establishment are force-feeding us a candidate who energizes no one, who — via his dollars — bombards us with negative ads that tear down the more conservative candidates, and who is too arrogant to concede that some of his past (and current) positions are a slap in the face of most people’s conservative beliefs.

I can’t learn to love someone like that.

Can I vote for him in the general election? Of course. But will I fight for him? If I do, it will be halfheartedly, with the same brand of contrived passion that I find evidenced in the candidate, himself.

It’s as if I can hear Bonnie Raitt singing every time Governor Romney opens his mouth:

Thanks for reading.