I think the Left and MSM is still not truly understanding on a visceral gut-level... the national antipathy for Obama. Or the simple electoral math, such as swing states, like WI, without which he can't win have enacted election reform, which . And have had conservative landslides. Granted the Left has reacted to them violently, but the conservatives have weathered the storm.
I don't like Newt at all either, however, he'll mop the floor with Obama. And while he's a sleazy opportunist himself, as an opportunist, there's at least the chance the right Congress and the Tea Party types can give him the right opportunities to follow with a finger in the wind. And right now, anybody beating Romney for the nomination would be a good thing, just to defeat the Northeast blue-blood RINO establishment, despite Newt's own ties to it. Because of Romney, he's not perceived as being the RINO candidate, and for that sort of battle, that's what matters.
If Romney wins the nomination, and then POTUS, it'll set back the conservative backlash/Tea Party reforms for years, decades even. America might tighten it's belt just enough to avert disaster, but not nearly enough to prevent it from happening yet again in a few more years. Although I worry all we can do is buy time at this point. Newt, Romney, Obama... It's like being told you've got a choice between cancers, one that'll kill you in four years, one that will kill you in six years, and one that'll kill you in eight.
With only those choices, what you pick is obvious, but still...
Lip service of truly Conservative/Libertarian ideals slowly has a habit of becoming actual policy. And to a great degree, what kind of Congress we get to send legislation to the POTUS is more important than the POTUS himself, at least as long as he's still nominally on the right side of the aisle. With Newt, I at least see a path by which he can be prodded with sticks and led with carrots to the right. Romney, like my other thread wondering aloud as how to do so, not so much...