Mitt Romney: Ruled as a centrist when he was governor of Massachusetts. Brings a great deal of good private sector experience. Not as slavish to the interests of the rich as the others. He has been socially right-wing for a long time, the question is always, is he truthful? There is a suspicion that if elected, he would be much more like Obama than his rhetoric suggests. All in all, a reasonably moderate candidate.
Ron Paul: Great strengths, great weaknesses. You have to admire his consistent world view. His approach to foreign policy and civil rights is so self-evidently correct that other candidates don’t know to respond to it. An enemy of the system, constantly being undercut by the mainstream media. He also has great weaknesses. He would seek to undo large swaths of the social nets built up since FDR, his knowledge of economics is laughable, and his sense of ideological purity is not always a good thing. A perfect kind of primary candidate to push the others towards his views, but you probably don’t want him as president.
Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Cain, Bachmann: Nuts. Stark raving mad, barely distinguishable from each other. The idea that any of these lunatics might get near the Oval Office should be terrifying to any informed citizen. And even among this pack of disasters, you have to single out Gingrich. Gingrich began and is the embodiment of everything we hate about politics – the rise of partisanship over policy, the win at any costs mentality over get something done. He’s a terrible terrible man, personally and professionally.