R: Dr. Santorum, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mitt Romney

As citizens we continually face a daunting task each election season.  When searching for the proper candidate we strive for a balance between maintaining ideological consistency with our conservative values and choosing the "most electable" candidate for our party.  More often than not, we can relate to Will Rogers' belief that, "We always want the best man to win the election... unfortunately he never runs."  Realists, however, have to remove the rose-colored glasses and look at the merits of the current candidates.  We must question if it is ever prudent to sacrifice our values in order to win an election.  Even if that candidate wins, is that victory really a success if it fails to yield a presidency that can restore conservative values?  With this week's debate, we pause to discuss the merits of two of the Republican candidacy frontrunners: Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.  Many disillusioned Republicans seem to have simply resigned to supporting Romney while others frantically test the alternatives to find a candidate who they think can defeat Obama in an election.  However, others have begun casting support not for the most viable candidate, but rather for those who best represent their concept of conservatism.  Within this context we will try to determine which candidate is most worthy of our vote.