Further, with reference to the "baggage" of Gingrich, JediJones makes a point which is worth repeating: "If they think someone failing at a marriage is worse baggage than Solyndra, Fast and Furious, trillions in new debt, the government takeover of health care, forcing churches to violate their conscience, refusing to develop our own energy products due to an adherence to vague pagan ideology . . . , then I’ll know once and for all that this country is too stupid to be deserving of its Constitution and that it won’t be surviving much longer."
With regard to Romney, recently, Charles Krauthammer, who certainly has not been a Gingrich supporter, said of Romney:
". . . But he (Romney) simply doesn’t have the capacity to explain with some color and sort of force conservative ideas."
Which is precisely why he has no business going up against an ideologue who does "have the capacity to explain with some color and sort of force" the ideas of redistribution.
Krauthammer was slow to come to admitting the obvious fact that Romney doesn't "explain" conservative ideas because they are not part of his intellectual DNA, as they are with someone who has immersed himself/herself in the ideas of America's founding history.
Gingrich's quick analysis of opposing ideas, combined with an ability to put them in historical context, didn't just come about by osmosis. They came about through a lifelong study of history. In recent decades, Ronald Reagan is the only American president who was so familiar with our founding ideas that he could weave them into discussions on "issues" of the day; thereby giving clarity to threats to liberty.
By the same token, Obama has studied, been mentored in, and well understands the ideology and strategies for presenting his case for redistribution, government planning, and control--all the while masking them in "genial" (love Sowell's description) benevolence and "taking care" of those to whom he appeals, even as his policies are enslaving future generations.
His Republican opponent needs to be quick and able to rebut, rebuke, and reveal the cloaked tyranny encased in his message which may appeal to those who see him as a benevolent leader, not a serious threat to their posterity's Creator-endowed right to be free.
Gingrich is right. If the goal of the primaries is to determine a candidate who can bring such clarity to the ideas of conservatism that Obama's counterfeit ideas will be defeated, then Romney, in the words of Krauthammer, "simply doesn't have the capacity" to do it. After the multiple debates, he has not exhibited it to this point; and that "capacity" cannot be coached. It must be a natural outgrowth of understanding.
It's time for a real "intellectual" to take on the pseudo-intellectual of the Democrats. That would have to be Gingrich.