So I've been following the election coverage, so I've enjoyed seeing Romney knocked off his high horse, his unauthentic, robot like behavior, bothers me. However Gingrich is such a hypocrical liar that chance that he could win the election is a very scary thought. It’s like evil vs evil, as a democrat Obama lost my support when he extended the bush tax cuts, but with the republicans having gone off the deep end I feel like I don’t have choice but vote for Obama.

If newt or mitt gets nominated I am fairly certain Obama will win in November.

Newt is like the cockroach of politicians. Like one of my friends says, there would have at least been some comedic value in a Perry or a Santorum win, but Newt isn't even funny. He's just creepy. I'd much rather have the guy with a record of unprincipled moderation than the guy with the history of trainwreck-scale grandiosity.

Actually, now that I think about it, he's kind of like an older, meaner John Edwards.

At this point the issue doesn't seem to be which one can win as much as which one will do the most damage down the ticket if they get nominated (Newt, but thanks to Newt's recent attacks on Bain Capitol the difference is shrinking). My personal suspicion is that if Newt does well in Florida then the party establishment will all but shanghai one of the adults who refused to run this cycle in a desperate effort to head off disaster. Not, mind you, that I think an adult can get nominated by the Republican base; but they'll have to try.

It's far too late in the nomination process to bring an adult into the situation, especially with the amount of super-PAC money floating around getting votes for Mittens and the Lizard. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that's ever been done before by the GOP... anyone know?

Of the two, I think Mitt actually has the high ground since any ground is better than that amphibian, philandering turd Newt. I'm firmly of the opinion that the only two reasons the current Mrs. Gingrich hasn't been replaced is that she hasn't gotten sick yet and that she allows him *discrete* steps outside of their marriage. The earlier model (wife no. 2) said as much.

I don't like Mitt because I personally think he's one of those stereotypical politicians whose publicly stated opinions on facts varies depending on what he thinks will get votes rather than a true moral value. This works, as long as your career is relatively short (as some people had pointed out, rightly or wrongly, during the McCain/Obama election of '08). One needs only look at Romney's record on Roe v. Wade to make that point clear. But of the two, he's the less... repulsive.

Whichever one gets the nomination, the longer they continue this knockdown drag-out fight the better the news is for Obama. I'm sure he's taking notes on every accusation flying back and forth and noting which ones seem to get the most traction.

I said two years ago nobody in the (R) field had what it took to derail the Obama train, and I still think it's true even if all of the candidates weren't sniping each other constantly. In fact, not only are they in a circular firing squad but just moved to fully automatic weaponry (the SuperPAC attack ads).

I hold by what Barney Frank said in his retirement press conference: "I did not think I’ve lived a good enough life to be rewarded by Newt Gingrich being the Republican nominee. It still is unlikely, but I have hopes."

Am I the only one who doesn't think that a politician changing his or her position on an issue is necessarily a bad thing? If a politician has never, ever changed position on any issue, I take that as a sign that they cannot contemplate the possibility that they could be wrong, which I consider to be a pretty severe personality flaw.

No, but you have to wonder about their motives for changing their positions. Some people seem to change their position based on who they are talking to at the moment. Some positions seem to change as soon as it is announced that the candidate has won a seat.

It's one thing to change your mind on something because you believe you've been proven wrong. It's another thing entirely to change your mind because you think you might get something out of it. The latter seems the far more common, depressingly enough.

I've always just interpreted that kind of behavior as simply not caring particularly much about a particular issue, but recognizing that it is important to your audience. In today's world of widespread media coverage for campaigns, it's harmless and actually demonstrates a collection of character traits that I consider positive in a political representative: the ability to recognize what other people are passionate about and where their preferences lie.

If you're right about that, then that would mean that Romney doesn't care about much of anything, aside from becoming president. I'm starting to wonder about how he would govern if a full Republican congress gets elected this November. Hooboy.

Same thing that happened when Bush had a republican congress or when Obama had a democrat congress. They ram something down our throats that is bad for the country and once again bloats our government to even larger levels, increases our debt farther to the point of never being able to repay it, and chips away even more at an individual's freedom to do anything.

The Republican dynamic is different now than it was under Bush. Bush didn't have to deal with the Tea Party, and these days anyone claiming to be a "compassionate conservative" would be laughed out of the room.

These days, the Tea Party can block John Boehner from making a budget deal with Obama just because Obama only gave them 85% of what they wanted and not 102%. Romney would likely end up making deals between the Tea Party and the establishment Republicans, which means Moar Tax Cuts with a side of financial deregulation, which are the only things the two wings of the Republican party now agree on. They may attempt to repeal the Obama health care law, although that might end up more difficult than it looks. Then they will make a big show of budget cuts, except they won't touch the military (that's Unpatriotic!) nor social security or medicare (will anger the old people), so they'll slash education and lesser welfare programmes such as food stamps, thus screwing people who've already been screwed by the economy while saving a negligible amount of money. I also doubt they'll touch immigration (will anger businesses that employ illegal immigrants).

I am just hoping that if Romney wins, the Federal Reserve won't cave in to the pressure to raise interest rates to ward off the invisible bond vigilantes and nonexistent inflation. If they do that, then the economy will go and screw itself again.

When the GOP field was still full I said Republicans would eventually hold their noses and vote Romney and I still believe that. Newt's bomb throwing style may be a cathartic release for the right but I'm confident they will at the 11th hour submit to reality and fall behind the guy who is less offensive at first glance. The visceral hatred of Obama is too high. Compromise for electability is inevitable.