what they want versus what they need

There’s a GOP debate tonight.

Many of the consensus bandwagon people are drooling with anticipation over Newt kicking Mitt’s butt.

As I have said a number of times, I don’t like Romney, but I can’t stand Gingrich. What I like less or cannot stand more does not matter. I have learned that regardless of what I think, say, or do, the people I consider the worst choices have an uncanny way of becoming the choices.

Sometimes it seems to me that the Republican Party cannot learn from failure. So many of them (a consensus-driven plurality) seem bound and determined to repeat the Sharron Angle experience, and they can’t wait to get solidly behind the candidate who most appeals to their sense of what they think they most want at the time.

WANT.

Right now they most want whoever is the leading anti-Romney, and IMO they really aren’t thinking about long term. All this plurality knows is what they want right now, which is a Not Romney, and Newt happens to be the leading Not Romney. Newt of course is a past master of political timing, and for him being the anti-Romney is so easy that it’s almost a no-brainer. Like picking low-hanging fruit.

So, if the plurality — the “base” if that’s an accurate way to describe them — if they get Newt, they will have what they want.

I think they forget that what you want is not necessarily what you need.

They seem to forget that what they need is to defeat Barack Obama.

I say this as someone who does not want either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

Hell, I want Gary Johnson. As if that matters. And if I consider my own principles, it certainly does matter.

The problem is that in politics, want is a synonym for principles.

MORE (10:27 p.m.): I have been watching tonight’s debate, and there is little question that Newt Gingrich is the smartest person on the stage, and certainly the best debater.  Whether he is right, whether he has the right temperament, whether he can beat Obama in the general election — such things seem to be of secondary importance.

They only matter later.