Gingrich -- The Grinch who Stole the Election?

Newt Gingrich is a salamander of a pol.

He has changed his colors and his contours so many times.

He's more of a chameleon than a newt, but he is taking on the hue of the Grinch, a slimy character who steals opportunities from an emboldened electorate who want more than "hope and change"

Hope does not disappoint, as even this recent Catholic convert ought to know.

Yet for all of his changes, his repentances, his turns of the heart, this collection of drastic difference has no place in the White House.

We need leadership in this country, the type of leadership in which the one in the Executive Mansion will simply do what the Constitution has required of him - uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States of America.

Newt Gingrich was a major in two shut downs in the mid-1990's during the Clinton Presidency, but he was also crucial to the passage of welfare reform and the balanced budget of 1999-2000.

Those achievements are more than a decade old, and for all the talk and walk about balanced budgets, the United States is still hemorrhaging under an enormous national debt, growing larger by the day with annual deficits in the trillions.

This is insanity. Newt Gingrich is a quizzical man who zig-zags too much.

The private perversions of a man do not necessarily cast a negative pale on his ability to govern. Yet this man twice divorced the current spouse while dating the replacement. His dalliances with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are too suspect to ignore.

He is a fine debater, an effective communicator. Ronald Reagan was an able speaker and unifier, as well, who also cut taxes, but not spending, and presiding over the ballooning of federal deficits and the national debt.

We do not need amiable optimism. The United States needs committed leadership.
We need consistency, not charisma; we need less government, not more intervention.

Newt Gingrich is a committed man to his own convictions, but those convictions seem to change with expediency and political efficacy. His candor is questionable, just like Mitt Romney's declaration of core conservatism, when his record bears witness of nothing but pragmatic political calculation.

We have had three years of smooth talk and no results. We have more of the same, but now worse. We could do with less: less government, less intervention, less talk, lower taxes, fewer regulations, fewer laws.

Mr. Gingrich may steal this nomination, but he has not captivated the hearts of his hearers. He is the most tolerable also-ran to the Washington Establishment, so far.

However, for the true limited government advocates who swelled the ranks of the Tea Party Movement and pushed the Democrats from power in 2010, there is still hope.

An able candidate with demonstrable skill and integrity is waiting to be elected, waiting to come to the forefront of the national conscience. That candidate is not Newt Gingrich, cannot be Mitt Romney.