Ron Paul Brings Sexy Back

Choosing presidential candidates is sort of like dating. When you first meet someone they can seem wildly attractive, but the more you get to know them the more you start to find things you don’t like.

No self-respecting conservative is attracted to Mitt Romney. In the search for an anti-Romney, Republican voters once thought Newt Gingrich was hot, until they learned the very things they didn’t like about Romney—government run healthcare, TARP—were also supported by Gingrich. Similarly, some Republicans seem to think Rick Santorum has it going on, but the more his glaring big government record is brought up—No Child Left Behind, Medicare Plan D—the more the Senator loses his sizzle.

There has been much criticism of Republicans throughout this election for jumping from candidate to candidate and not being able to make up their minds. But Republicans actually deserve praise for this. If in past elections GOP voters were willing to settle more quickly for horrible candidates, today’s confusion stems from a GOP that refuses to settle. In rejecting Romney, conservative Republicans simply see nowhere to go—so they’ve gone everywhere.

The Tea Party is no doubt responsible for creating the current more consciously conservative Republican Party, and the movement was founded on one simple unifying principle: Stop Spending. No single leader or individual group controls the Tea Party but most Tea Partiers would agree that balancing the budget and reducing the debt is their top priority. The question today is, ‘For which presidential candidate is this a top priority?’

A recent study indicates there is only one. After examining each candidate’s economic proposals, last week the independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reported that Newt Gingrich’s plan would add $7 trillion to the national debt, Santorum’s would add $4.5 trillion and Romney’s would add $250 billion.

But Ron Paul would actually cut our debt to the tune of $2.2 trillion.

But many conservative Republicans say they aren’t necessarily comfortable with Paul on every issue. This doesn’t change the fact that Paul is the only one who’s right on what has always been the Tea Party’s primary issue. It doesn’t change the fact that Romney, Santorum and Gingrich all fail miserably on what has always been the Tea Party’s primary issue.

The entire purpose of our Constitution was to limit the federal government, including its power to spend recklessly. Paul’s purist constitutional approach is nothing less than hitting the reset button on the republic of the Founders. As the Daily Caller’s Max Borders has observed:

One of the cleverest things Justin Timberlake ever did was bring sexy back. After all, sexy never really went away. But once the song came out, it didn’t matter. People welcomed sexy back with open arms. Now there’s nothing particularly sexy about the Ron Paul campaign. But just as Justin Timberlake brought sexy back, Ron Paul is bringing the Constitution back even though it never went away…

Dating can be annoying and difficult. Even when you find the right partner there will still be things you don’t like about them. The same is true of political candidates. No one will ever be perfect.

But voters should reasonably be able to expect that their candidate will be with them on the issues that matter most. A majority of conservative Republicans now agree that addressing our crushing debt is what matters most.

Republicans will likely continue to fall in and out of love with all of the candidates in this election. But when it comes to real fiscal conservatism, Ron Paul remains the sexiest candidate in this race.