Which is why the consertaive initiatives passed by Gingrich, and the Republican majority he achieved in the house made him a better candidate than Ron Paul. If you can't get a majority elected on the strength of your ideas (Contract with America) and get your ideas implemented, you accomplish nothing towards moving the country back toward conservative founding principals. You have to be able to build a working coalition to pass and implement your ideas. Gingrich has proven he can do that, against tremendous odds. Which is the main reason he was not supported by the GOP-E. They wanted a go-along-to-get along Speaker. He was not, and made BIG changes. RP has never been able to do it, despite the correctness of most of his ideas

I admire Ron Paul for his steadfastness to the constitution, and agreed with 95% of his policy positions. He has done a yeoman's job of bringing spending, Fed Reserve shenanigans, and department cuts to the forefront of the discussion. He loses me on some of his foreign policy stands. However, he has NO record of achieving any of his plans and/or positions. Newt did.

You obviously need to "elevate" your reading selections. Try reading something with some serious intellectual weight. Don't limit yourself to the Huffington Post.

Newt was the only candidate with detailed, serious strategies for the most pressing issues we face as a nation: the debt, the dismantling of our constitution by liberal activists judges, and jobs (with energy independence at the forefront). He had personal issues it is true, but he freely, and very publicly, asked for forgiveness for those past transgressions from both the voters and God. His conservative achievements unquestionably surpassed those of any other candidates. Massive untruthful attack ads, and the refusal of Romney to compete with Newt on the issues alone leaves a sour taste in the mouth of many voters that the Republican nomination was bought rather than won by Romney. Newt's defeat is conservative's loss.

Opps. Should have been "led to our judicial oligarchy"

Google the term "original intent". Google the Federalist Papers, which were the founding father's arguments advocating ratification of the constitution by the various states. Madison explicitly disavowed the intent of the "general welfare" clause was to grant the government powers not enumerated in the rest of the constitution. Per Madison, if the "general welfare" clause could be expanded beyond the enumerated powers, the entire constitution would be worthless, because you would no longer have limits on the government. The illogical process of "progressive" constitutional law that's been advocated since the early 1900s, invalidates the amendment process & lead to our judicial oligarchy.

Actually what it comes down to is that three of the justices, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, generally use the only justifiable method of original intent in their analysis, Roberts and Kennedy sometimes do, but are too affected by public opinion, and the 4 lib/progressives rarely vote on anything but their personal convictions. ALL are way too respective of stare decisis, and ALL should be upholding and protecting the literal original intent of the constitution as the oath they took upon taking office requires them to do.

That is a load of hokum. How can you possibly make that case? Would love to hear the details of your analysis.

If the House repubs had any gonads, they would hold impeachment hearings of Kagan for not recusing herself. She was in the postion of the guy arguing the case for the government only a couple of years ago, at the time the law was passed, and was certainly consulted on the constitutionality of the law. NO WAY does she not have a conflict of interest. Not recusing herself should NOT be tolerated. Too bad we have more squishes than constitutionalists in the House.

I saw that, but really, if we conservatives are EVER going to win the battle of public opinion, we simply must become more forceful and straightforward in confronting the premise of the MSM. Maggie had some good points, but she should have stuck it to ANYONE that tries to position the defeat of this monstrosity as judical activism. Without following originalist intent on constitutionality, we have a "living" constitution with penumbras only the "Brahmins" of the legal profession can discern, instead of a straight-forward contract with the people. We have an admendmnt process, if you want to change the meaning of the constitution. That process has been rendered superflous by liberal activism, & a SCOTUS oligarchy, instead of a republic