I have to make an announcement:  I am going to vote for Ron Paul in the Kentucky Republican primary.  I’m not going to be voting for Paul because I like him.  I came to this decision in a process of elimination, and Paul was the only one I can’t discard:

• Newt Gingrich:  I’m as flawed a human being as you can get, but I can’t vote for a serial adulterer who didn’t flee Washington like his hair was on fire after he wasn’t re-elected.  Yes, I’m making a subjective and probably unfair judgement call about someones character based on what I know about his personal life.  But to be fair, I did the same thing to Bill Clinton, Gingrich’s nemesis.  He’s a great debater, or at least a combative one who would make Obama work for it, but I’ve never seen anything from him that tells me he’d be able to lead the country. 
• Rick Santorum:  Seems like a good guy, but after the things I’ve heard him say about gay people and their ability to marry, I can’t support him.  A president can’t be choosy about whose rights he holds dear.  I always say that if the rights of one of us are violated, then the rights of all of us are violated, and I believe that if I as a twice-divorced heterosexual man can choose whatever other human being I want to be with (hopefully) the rest of my life, then every other citizen, gay or straight, should be able to do that too.  Look at it this way, if he was saying “I love guns, just not those guns” instead of “I love marriage, just not those marriages” would you vote for him?
• Mitt Romney –  Do I believe that Romney will be Obama light?  Actually, I’ve come away from that.  Romney isn’t a wannabe socialist.  I see Romney as a political chameleon who will try to govern through consensus rather than fight for what he believes is right.  He will compromise base principles in order to say he’s accomplished something, even if it’s counter to the philosophy of the people who elected him, and therefore I won’t vote for him. 

So I come to Ron Paul.  Now, I like a lot of what Dr. Paul has to say about domestic policy, but I have problems with his foreign policy stance.  I’m all for reducing our foreign military involvement, but I think he wants to cut too close to the bone.  I also know that what a candidate promises on the campaign trail, what a sitting president tries to do in concert with the Congress, and what actually happens in the end are three very different things, so maybe my concerns aren’t that big a deal.

Do I think he has much of a chance of getting elected?  I have no idea.  Obama would be able to paint him as an extremist kook, but he would be able to re-energize the Tea Party movement.  If he chose a conservative running mate, he might have a shot.

However, none of the Republicans are the kind of candidate and leader who you can look at and say “He will beat Obama”.  Gingrich and Santorum will bring the nutroots out of the woodwork, and Romney is the opponent that Obama wants and he won’t get the Republicans to the polls. 

So I’ll cast my vote in the primary, try to get excited over the summer, and consider third party voting in November.  I’m seriously beginning to think that it would be better for Obama to have the White House with a Republican Congress than for any of these four to have a compliant Republican Congress.