Quaker Oats, Cream of Wheat, Or...

Herman or Newt?

The way things are starting to shake out in the Republican primaries, it's starting to look like that's the choice we're going to be presented with, unless Perry suddenly learns how to talk on national TV. Both Cain and Gingrich have their personal flaws, but as Scott M. points out over at American Digest:

You can't pick a candidate that will preempt liberal smears, so pick a candidate that will fight and win. Romney isn't electable. Romney is the man that lost to the man that lost to Obama. Conservatives are so afraid of a fight they hope to find a candidate that hits all the check marks so nobody will attack him. The desire for a candidate the libs can't attack should be proof your worldview is dysfunctional.

Emphasis mine.  I'd agree with this evaluation of Romney.  Erik Erickson recently opined that if Mitt wins the Republican nomination, conservatism dies and Barack Obama wins:

Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. And his general election campaign will be an utter disaster for conservatives as he takes the GOP down with him and burns up what it means to be a conservative in the process.

By any measure, nominating Romney is the "safe" option.  He's got steady numbers, after all - one in four Republicans support him!  And the rest, we're promised, will hold their noses and support him, too, because compared to our current train wreck of an administration and incompetent-in-chief, he'd be a marginally better choice!  Yay, Mitt!

In other words, he's political oatmeal.  Bland, tasteless, and what all the Grown Ups (TM) insist you should choose because it's good for you.

I... hate... oatmeal.

Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Mitt's just the same old soggy bowl of oats.  He's being peddled in a marginally attractive package in the hopes you'll think he's somehow different from all the bowls of mush you've choked down in the past.

No thank you.

There's still some time to go.  Miracles do happen, after all.  We could end up with a dark horse, come-from-behind front runner that is the perfect, personable, unsmearable conservative candidate we can all support.  I'd argue that expecting that to happen is just a slightly different form of insanity, though.

So... realistically.  Who's it going to be, folks?  Herman, or Newt?

Or are you going to be good boys and girls and eat your yummy, yummy Romney brand oatmeal?