Midknight Review's List of GOP Leaders Not To Die For and the Present Demand for a New GOP.

Without much fanfare, here is our list of GOP standard bearers to avoid as the 2012 primary season gets under way (yes, it is already here).

1. Mitt Romney is at the top of the list but not for any good reason.

2. Newt Gingrich - his bitching about Clinton's adultery when he was doing much the same thing is a non-starter for us.

3. Jeb Bush: while we do not see a lot of negatives in this fellow, we believe it is time for the GOP to come out of the Bushes and branch out with new leadership.

4. Mike Huckabee: a great guy but it is like having a gal as a particular man's best friend and then, suddenly, trying to turn the friendship into a romance. It don't work. The Governor has spent too much time making himself a friend of the people. And we are and his is and the love affair is dead.

5. John McCain or anyone allied with the man. He was a compromised mess and any changes one sees to that predicament is only casual. If this list had any serious order to it, McCain would occupy the top 5 places. He is a buffoon for whom we have little respect. His leadership was at the heart of the GOP's conservative demise and such will not be soon forgotten.

We need new leadership at the top --- folks who have not been there before. And we need them in the coming election. Enough with solving the healthcare mess with thousands of pages of regulation (ObamaCare) or tax breaks and savings accounts (the historical John McCain "solution'). Enough of the idiocy of digging our way out of the hole we are in (i.e. spending our way out of debt - both parties have are complicit in this tragedy). Enough of ignoring the immigration problem. We need a closed or well managed border. We need a compassionate solution to the entire immigration process. No longer can we insist on a system of acquired citizenship that takes 10 and 15 years to complete. And we simply must give up on the fantasy of rounding up 15 million people, all illegal, and deporting them. How do we accomplish that, anyway !! On the other hand, immigration leaders need to admit to the unsustainability of an illegal and very poor population . It is simply stupid to suggest that illegals "more than pay their way" in this society. They do not. As you may know, members of the County Board of Supervisors in Los Angeles, revealed this past week that in one county alone, the illegal population there is costing the taxpayers 1.67 billion per year -- not including free education form k thru 12.

We - the GOP - need new leadership and it needs to mirror the population it claims to represent. No one in the brief list above offers that sort of change, period.

Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are members of a valuable leadership minority. Ditto Herman Cain. There are the young guns such as Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Representative Mike Pence has been a tireless conservative leader in the House. Nothing wrong with Jim DeMint or Rand Paul or the new Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio (whatever happened to him, anyway?). We have two rising stars in the House from the Black community, Allen West and Tim Scott, both well spoken and dedicated leaders with a heart for conservative values.

We like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell but if these two congressional leaders move ahead without the benefit of the New GOP, a huge mistake will have been made and our support for that leadership duo will be no more.

Point of this post: new faces within the GOP is not just a good idea, it is the demand and order of the day. If we refuse, we are looking at the death of the Grand Old Party and the defeat of conservatism.

End Notes:

Pictured top to bottom are: Paul Ryan, Allen West, Marco Rubio and Ted Scott.