Mitt Romney/Nikki Haley 2012 or Gingrich/Palin 2012?

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 1/11/12

Romney’s victory in New Hampshire can almost deliver the nomination to him and I am convinced, the presidency. There cannot be a more auspicious moment. Having a man from Bain come in and restore your company or country is like having Chef Gordon Ramsey reawaken your restaurant. And Romney brings skills to his task akin to those of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It is a transitional moment but it might even be considered a transcendent moment. Barack Obama’s job was to complete a work project begun long ago by Jack Kennedy and Eisenhower and even farther back to Lincoln, Emerson and Garrison. This aspect he has graciously mastered and completed.

But we are a different country today than we were in 1831, 1865 or 1956; a rich and full country and one that looks auspiciously out across the Pacific as well as the Atlantic. A place today like Black Elk looked to as “the center of the world”, East, West, South and the Great White North. So 2012 brings a beginning and there is no one better to begin new processes, systems and establishments than Romney. There is no better man for our times.

Providing everything goes well in South Carolina which today is more important than New Hampshire.

2012 could bring Romney/Haley 2012 or Romney/Perry or Romney/Petraeus but this has been the political season of the trickster and the trickster is still at large. So South Carolina could just as easily bring Gingrich/Palin 2012. I think Romney has it. But the departure of Bill Daley from the White House is also ominous. Daley is honest and honorable. He was the first to speak out about the direction of the Obama presidency, claiming that it was leaving the middle behind. It appeared that Daley was brought into the White House to accommodate that middle. Now that he is being sent out it appears that the middle – and Daley’s warning to Obama – is being abandoned and the president will pursue a more radical agenda. This could bring crisis to a divided America like we have not seen in a hundred years.