GOP Primary Boasts Fascinating Cast

Last weekend I found myself staring at a television that was showing the latest Republican presidential debate.

Despite the countless debates that have aired this year - seriously, are we going on triple digits now?

• I’ve managed to miss almost all of them.

So why did I watch this one? Maybe it was out of a sense of patriotic duty to get informed about the candidates before I vote.

Maybe it was the fact there was no football to watch. Maybe it was the sweet, enchanting voice of moderator Diane Sawyer that drew me in. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t compel myself to change the channel.

Here’s my quick take on each of the six candidates who participated. These are based on more than just my observations of them in the debate.

Newt Gingrich: Smart guy, but he might have even more baggage than brains.

When a conservative talkshow host offers you $1 million to get out of the race because he doesn’t think you can beat Obama, you’ve got issues.

Mitt Romney: I don’t understand the fixation on his religion. The people of Massachusetts didn’t seem to mind it too much, perhaps because they realized religion has practically nothing to do with a person’s ability to run a state. Yet, even in this field of candidates, Romney has failed to seize control of front-runner status.

Michele Bachmann: Don’t get me wrong. In no way do I oppose electing a woman as our president.

Just not this woman. Sorry.

Ron Paul: Useless bit of trivia: We haven’t had a president with two first names since Chester Arthur (1881-85), who also happened to be a Republican. Paul’s ideas range from somewhat sensible to downright goofy. He’s also 76 years old - one year older than John McCain. I’m not posing that as a reason tovote against him, but others might.

Rick Santorum: He’s a lawyer. President Barack Obama is a former lawyer.

You really want to watch those two debate next fall?

Ugh.

Rick Perry: My gut feeling is he’s better suited to be governor of Texas than president of the United States. Also, America just broke up with a president from Texas. It’s too soon for another one.

The one candidate I was sorry not to see participating in last weekend’s debate was theformer governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman Jr.

This Republican primary has largely been about who’s the most anti-Obama. In between we’ve been subjected to sideshows such as Perry’s spectacular rise and steady fall, former candidate Herman Cain’s parade of supposed girlfriends and Romney’s hair.

If I were a Republican - I’m an independent - my sole focus would be deciding which candidate is most likely to beat Obama in 2012. Huntsman might very well be thatcandidate.

At 51, he’s still relatively young. Tall and handsome, he has that presidential “look.” He likes motocross and progressive rock and rides a Harley, so he has at least as much of the “cool” factor as Obama.

He’s fiscally conservative and socially moderate, so he should appeal to a wide swath of independents, if not Democrats.

He has a reputation as a centrist, in part because he served as Obama’s ambassador to China, a post he left in order to run for president. He alsowas an ambassador to Singapore for President George H.W. Bush. Under George W. Bush, he was a deputy U.S. trade representative. So, there’s your foreign relations experience.

And, oh yeah, he has that executive experience going for him. He was governor of the conservative state of Utah for four years, winning re-election in 2008 with 77 percent of the vote before resigning to take the ambassador’s job. He also served as an executive in his family’s business.

Family-value voters will like him, too. He and his wife have been married 28 years and have seven children - two of them are adopted.

This might sound like an endorsement of Huntsman, but it’s not meant to be.

Rather, it’s a plea to those Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire and everywhere else to give Huntsman a close look.

If Bachmann scares you and Romney bores you and Gingrich puts you to sleep, remember, there’s an alternative.

DAVE PEROZEK IS AN EDITORIAL WRITER FOR NORTHWEST ARKANSAS NEWSPAPERS.