The Commons at Paulie World

I would vote for Newt in a heartbeat. He is a true conservative. He is smart. He understands the threats facing the country. However, the last poll I saw had him with 49% negative approval rating. I think that makes him unelectable. The only other candidate with negatives above the 20's was Hillary Clinton with 42%.

Newt has no real scandals. It is just that for his entire term as Speaker he was the face of the evil Republican party to the Dems and the news media. Just like every Democrat ran ads saying that their Republican opponent supported "George Bush's war in Iraq," every Democrat that ran in the mid 90's said that their Republican opponent supported "Newt Gingrich's risky something or other plan."

I like Rudy and would vote for him if he were the nominee. He is a social liberal, and I'm not too sure how conservative he is fiscally (although there are few of those anywhere today). The thing I like most about him is that he is kind of an open book -- he is who he is. He was a Yankee fan and despite the fact that he was mayor of a National League town, you would never see him in a mets cap. He walked out on Arafat. He threatened to cut off public funding to some museum when they displayed such works of art as a crucifix in a bottle of urine or the Virgin Mary made out of elephant dung. We need a President who is not afraid to be himself, warts and all.