Former Speaker Newt Gingrich officially put his political foot on the starting line yesterday in his Presidential bid. Newt is the typical GOP 2012 hopeful candidate: fiscal Conservative and ”experienced.” Yeah, I do think he could take Obama down to Chi-town in a debate. Yes, he has skeletons in his closet but when has that ever hurt a politician? Bill Clinton’s closet was like Halloween all year round and it didn’t hurt him one bit! But he isn’t the one for us. So many of my fellow Republicans and Conservatives have the blah feeling about those who have put their elephant in the political circus ring.  I do too and we are not going to get rid of that feeling until the GOP steps out of their comfort zone and nominates someone who just may not by the ‘’typical’’ or ‘’safe’’ nominee.

Allow me to give credit where credit is due. The Democratic Party tends to do an exceptional job picking their candidates. They often tend to pick an ‘’up and coming’’ person while unveiling him or her on the scene little by little, a la Barack Hussein Obama. The DNC put Obama out there in 2004 to speak at the Democratic National Convention in essence to test the political waters. What they got was a tsunami of approval for the junior ‘’present’’ voting Senator. It worked. The other thing the Democrats do well is they don’t shy away from an “inexperienced” candidate. We saw that in 2008. This may be beneficial for Republicans this time around because the left no longer has one leg to stand when it comes to nominating someone who has no experience. Enter state left Obama, case in point. Furthermore, I rarely have ever heard the Democrats say they don’t think a particular candidate can win. I hate to say it, but can the Republicans take some notes? There are some lessons to learn here.

Now, when I say young I don’t necessarily mean young in regards to age (it wouldn’t hurt…) but I mean someone refreshing, someone youthful, politically speaking.

For example, Republicans wonder why we struggle to win the youth vote. You have to look no further than who Republicans nominated in 2008… The Republican Party fails to reach out to the youth vote. We cannot sit idly by and expect the youth vote to understand our message if we aren’t even reaching out to them! Obama didn’t win the youth vote based on his message. Frankly, the majority of youth voters were absolutely clueless to any of his beliefs or policies. Believe me, I spoke with many of them and every time I asked them why they were voting for him it was often because they saw him on The Daily Show or Colbert or on Rolling Stone magazine. I’m not saying the Republican candidate needs to lower himself and be called ‘’dude’’ by John Stewart. Heaven help us! What I am saying is the up and coming generation is going to be a major factor. We can’t take the youth vote for granted. The difference is that the Conservative message would resonate with many in the younger generation. If we would reach out to them and quit nominating stuffy candidates, we could obtain this voting base because we actually already have one up on the left: we have a message, they have MTV.

The same thing goes for the minority vote. For instance, the Hispanic vote is and will be huge for the future of America. Republicans and Conservatives are failing here too. It is a known fact that the majority of the Hispanic community is Catholic. Catholics are known to be staunchly pro-life. So why in the world did 66% of Hispanics vote for Obama (the most pro-abortion candidate America has seen) in 2008? There is a major disconnect there and we are allowing it to grow. We can drain this ‘’moat’’ by reaching out and explaining that the Conservative message actually falls more in line with the values of the Hispanic community; work ethics, strong family values etc. I spent many years in Mexico with friends and their families; I am completely dumbfounded why Conservatives aren’t reaching out with our message that aligns so much more with the values of this particular voting base.

It’s time that Republicans get out of their comfort zone. The dynamics of elections are not going to conform to us, so we must conform to it if we want to protect the future of America. I’m not saying we lose our Conservative values in the process and lower the respect bar for the seat of America’s President as Obama has done. I would love nothing more than to see a President back in the Oval Office that doesn’t act like he’s hosting an MTV Awards show. Let’s loosen the tie a bit, or in case of a female nominee, let down the hair.

No matter what it seems we often are our own worst enemy. For every great potential Presidential nominee, we seem to always find something wrong. Palin is too ‘’polarizing.” Rubio doesn’t have ‘’enough experience.” No one ‘’knows’’ who Herman Cain is. Col Allen West is a ‘’one issue guy.” Paul Ryan is a “Washington insider.” All of these candidates could beat Obama but we are scaring the pants off our politically double guessing self! So we are left recycling oldies but goodies. Yeah, there are things I like about Romney, Huckabee, and Santorum. They would be fine nominees, but it leaves me not really wanting to blow my party horn. Take a risk GOP. Nothing ventured nothing gained and we sure aren’t going to gain anything with another four years of Marxism at the helm.