We need some out-of-the box thinking. Free up priviate enterprise to develop the massive amounts of oil/natural gas recently discovered to make us energy independent, reduce gas prices, provide jobs, and "lubricate" the private economy. Use the BILLIONS in Federal Royalties paid by the oil/gas producers to pay current retirees/everyone over say, 50, everything SS promised. Give everyone under that age, or indeed any age, the option of either opting out of SS, or forgoing SS payments in return for a tax credit equal to what SS "owes" you. Of course, for the above to work, we would also have to massively reduce Fed Government spending, whacking whole departments, and laying off Fed Workers. Great Opportunity to become self-reliant again!

Romney is only slightly better than Obama. We should have elected a true conservative to be our standard bearer, but it was not to be in 2012.... We will have to constantly ride herd on Romney to keep his feet to the fire on conservative principles, but he may be able to buy us a few more years to turn things around by electing a majority of constitutional originalists to the House and Senate. Hopefully, we can elect a true conservative in 2016 to POTUS. We need someone with the ideas and fire of Newt without the baggage. Mitt is mush, the RNC is in the bag for the establishment (GOP-E), and our only hope to save the country is a grass-rrots takeover of the GOP by Tea Party supporters to STOP the SPENDING.

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.