Washington Post Republican Columnist George Will is Panicked and Severely Depressed About Republican Candidates

Mr. Will Turns to Jon Huntsman, Making Mr. Will One of the 1% ers.

Now that it is clear that the race for the Republican Presidential nomination has come down to a choice between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, people like WaPo columnist George Will are downright panicked.  Mr. Will is the “anti-Romney” house Conservative columnist for the Post, as compared to the “pro-Romney” house Conservative columnists for the Post like Kathleen Parker and Jennifer Rubin. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Will, the alternative to Mr. Romney appears to be Newt Gingrich, and the two prospects have Mr. Will appalled.  Mr. Will flat out does not like Mr. Romney

Romney’s main objection to contemporary Washington seems to be that he is not administering it. God has 10 commandments, Woodrow Wilson had 14 points, Heinz had 57 varieties, but Romney’s economic platform has 59 planks — 56 more than necessary if you have low taxes, free trade and fewer regulatory burdens.

He joins the rest of us in not knowing what Mr. Romney stands for, and he suspects it is not the pure Conservatism that Mr. Will and his cronies would inflict upon the unwilling country.  However since Mr. Will is one of the few Conservative pundits whose IQ is greater than his age, he does not consider the candidacy of Newt Gingrich with any enthusiasm either.

Granted, his grandiose rhetoric celebrating his “transformative” self is entertaining: Recently he compared his revival of his campaign to Sam Walton’s and Ray Kroc’s creations of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, two of America’s largest private-sector employers. There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich’s unrepented role as a hired larynx for interests profiting from such government follies as ethanol and cheap mortgages. His Olympian sense of exemption from standards and logic allowed him, fresh from pocketing $1.6 million from Freddie Mac (for services as a “historian”), to say, “If you want to put people in jail,” look at “the politicians who profited from” Washington’s environment.

This leaves Mr. Will with no other choice then to go with Rick Perry or Jon Huntsman.  Mr. Huntsman embodies the famous “1%”, but in this case 1% refers to his standing the polls on a good day.  The Perry candidacy is a natural for Mr. Will since his wife is with the campaign, and like Mr. Will,  The Dismal Political Economist puts marital accord ahead of almost everything else and so is willing to give Mr. Will a break on this incredible sentence.

Perry’s political assets remain his Texas record and Southwestern zest for disliking Washington and Wall Street simultaneously and equally.

which omits anything substantially praiseworthy of Mr. Perry, which is ok in that it turns out there is nothing praiseworthy about Mr. Perry.

As for Mr. Huntsman, Mr. Will is more than willing to accept Mr. Obama’s Ambassador to China for the top job.

Jon Huntsman inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. 

and Mr. Will goes on to cite the many virtues of Mr. Huntsman, like lowering taxes on the wealthy to explode the deficit, ending Federal involvement in education to make our children dumber, cutting Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae lose to further depress housing and all the rest of the great Conservative programs.

So in the end, if Mr. Romney is nominated Mr. Will will probably come around.  And who knows, maybe his wife will get a nice campaign job, or if Mr. Romney wins, a nice plum position in the government.  That will makes things happy all around in the Will household.