Morning Joe 1/23/2012 -- Mitt or Newt?

On Morning Joe today the guests were John Meacham, Mark Halperin, David Gregory, Chuck Todd and Gingrich's campaign manager, and the topic was the SC primary victory for Newt Gingrich. Last week it was fun for media types to push the Gingrich surge and speculate on an interesting and wild race, but as the possibility of a Newt presidency sinks in, media types are sobering up with conservative voters, realizing that this binge went too far.

Romney's camp will regroup, release the tax returns, show once more that Gingrich is a Washington insider who was too unethical even for the inner circle. Romney has to elevate his campaign through big ideas that are tied to actual systemic changes needed in our statist government. Romney has to gamble and inspire the voters. Ron Paul will continue to consistently build on his support. Hopefully Santorum will burn out on anger and resentment and fade away. The Gingrich surge, I believe, is a temporary temper tantrum.

The Morning Joe hosts and guests are at least asking the tough questions regarding Gingrich -- does anyone believe he wasn't a lobbyist and that Freddie Mac paid him a million dollars to tell them that they don't need any money? What has been missed regarding Newt's explanation is he recommended that Fannie and Freddie be broken up into 4 or 5 smaller companies. This is the problem with Newt -- he will intervene and enforce changes on companies from his statist perspective -- he will not reform the statist system and allow a free market to deal with housing, lending and finances. The problem is government interventionism, not who's doing the intervening and whether it's from the Left or Right.

If the great majority of conservatives and independents don't understand this distinction between free market principles and statism, then we're screwed once again, and it doesn't matter who prances around the world as President of the US.