A Time for Choosing | The Weekly Standard

A Time for Choosing | The Weekly Standard


To the Republicans of the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida:


CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: STATE FLAGS OF IOWA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, SOUTH CAROLINA, FLORIDA

At this moment of great peril for our nation, you have the privilege of beginning the process of selecting the 2012 Republican presidential nominee—the individual who will save us from the ghastly prospect of an Obama second term, and who will then have the task of beginning to put right our listing ship of state, setting our nation on a course to restored solvency, reinvigorated liberty, and renewed greatness.

Your responsibility is great. Your votes will affect which candidates survive January’s electoral gauntlet, their likelihood of ultimately prevailing, and even whether others will feel impelled to enter the race. You, the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, will shape the range of choices for your fellow citizens elsewhere in the nation in this crucial year.

How should you decide for whom to vote?

Vote for the person you think would be the best president of the United States. Ignore the proclamations of the pundits, the sophistries of the strategists, and the calculations of the handicappers. Ignore the ads, the robocalls, and the polls. Be skeptical of those who would seek, whether from national stage or local perch, cavalierly or presumptively to instruct you how to mark your ballot. That ballot is yours alone to cast.

Here the people rule. So you, the Republicans of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, can step back, consider the individual candidates in the totality of their public lives, study their records and platforms, judge their abilities and views, imagine each of them in the Oval Office making major decisions for the nation .  .  . and choose the individual who you think should be our next president.