Ann Coulter, without question, holds a certain degree of "importance" in the weekly debate over the jot and tittles of the debate between the left and right in America.
She is perhaps one of the most identifiable personalities on the right in America, second only to Rush Limbaugh.
The collective conservative universe bows in homage as the Townhall.com, WorldNetDaily, and HumanEvents websites e-blast her newest missive to their respective distribution lists every Wednesday evening vying for the first set of eyeballs to come to their own landing page for her newest rant.
Radio hosts jump like school boys with a crush when her newest book comes out, always eagerly sacrificing their most valuable asset (their own platforms) entirely for her gain.
She draws large crowds at both conservative and homosexual political conferences. She speaks openly of her own faith (Christianity), while regularly misinterpreting and/or misleading others as to the meanings of Christ, specifically the most important Christian doctrine--Grace.
She's smart as whip, and can dish out an impromptu tongue lashing while delivering the destructive blow maintaining a bit of a devilish grin.
Often she throws rhetorical temper tantrums over issues she has no relationship to. In the Amanda Knox case she sided against an innocent American girl, who had wrongfully been skillfully framed for the murder of a roommate. In doing so she called Knox's defenders "liberals and progressives" doing so from a framework of ignorance or negligence--neither an attractive quality. But she was materially and expressly false in those assumptions and refused to apologize to the conservative, Christian, Republican families she slandered in the process.
Ann's best qualities come in post-election analysis, seldom has she been very good in pre-election prognostication. She backed Duncan Hunter in the 2008 primary, until he dropped out, and then she backed Mitt Romney, the guy who despite spending an enormous fortune could muster no better than third in the 2008 race--behind a very weak McCain candidacy.
In 2011 she had exclusively backed a candidate who wasn't even in the race (New Jersey Governor Chris Christie), and this week in her syndicated column she claims that none of the candidates in the race other than Mitt Romney have a chance of defeating incumbent Barack Obama in the general election.
In 2008 it was uncovered long after the primaries had been concluded that the Romney campaign staff had in unethical and covert ways infiltrated prominent conservative opinion sources like the National Review with leads and exclusives that were designed to adversely harm all the other candidacies minus Romney. Most specifically National Review repeated false assertions made by these Romney operatives about Governor Mike Huckabee. Coulter parroted them in her syndicated space and was never called to account to it until she appeared on the Huckabee television show--to tout her book of course--when the Governor politely, but assertively called her inaccuracies into question.
It caused such consternation to Coulter that she walked out after one segment, though she had been booked for two.
Now she is arguing that because former Speaker Newt Gingrich has some legitimate baggage in his past that he is unelectable--despite his notable and steady rise in recent polls. She even goes so far as to imply that the "non-Romneys" in the race are being propped up by the "mainstream media."
In other words, for all the prattle she has dished out over the last dozen years about conservative ideals and purity, she's willing to chuck it all for the convenience of not having to actually execute a primary election cycle. So she has decreed it, "Mitt will win." Therefore it must be.
Wrong!
It is important for Romney's considerable weaknesses to be exposed so that conservatives can pick the truly best narrative to oppose Obama.
Obama has lost 2 million jobs. The GOP needs a candidate who can help usher in an environment by which jobs will be created. That's mostly done through small business, and getting out of their way. That is not the record of the man who wrote the very blueprint for Obamacare. That is not the record of the man who cannibalized companies and sold the parts at Bain capital.
Romney's 25% poll ceiling is bad for a primary race, but his lack of appeal to Evangelicals, Hispanics, Blacks, pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-family constituencies is horrible for the GOP in the general election.
Most importantly if Romney is the nominee, Obama will be re-elected.
This doesn't make Coulter's criticism of Gingrich's dealings with Freddie Mac unimportant, but his association with the agency is no worse than Mitt Romney seeing to it that while most health care procedures now get rationed in Massachusetts, $50 state-subsidized abortions flow freely from Romneycare.
Maybe Ann is lazy. She is certainly disadvantaged. She definitely shrinks when challenged.
Rush Limbaugh talks to callers on a daily basis, this is the advantage of a talk show host--they are actually in touch with what conservatives are thinking. Ann has tried her hand at talk radio on a couple of fill-in stints, each attempt met with a ratings yawn. Perhaps it's the interaction with people that weren't waiting for her to sign a book that tripped her up.
Whatever the case Republicans need a candidate who will demonstrate an ability to create jobs in the private sector. They need a candidate that can interact with groups of voters like blue-dog democrats who are demanding a balanced budget. They need a candidate who can appeal across ethnic and racial lines. They need a candidate who has a serious economic plan, a bold tax reduction plan, a plan to attract rapid small business growth, and a plan to revitalize the energy sector. They need a candidate who will downsize Washington DC, and return the power to the people that sent them there. They would even settle for a candidate that would start all foreign-aid at zero and force nations to prove loyalty in exchange for U.S. support.
Several of the non-Romneys have appeal on several of these levels.
Mitt Romney pretty much appeals to establishment Republicans with strong ties to the liberal northeast--almost all of them white.
Republicans a lot like Coulter.