Narrowing the GOP presidential list

There's a reason more than a dozen Republicans are either running for the GOP nomination for the presidency or considering it.

It's because the incumbent Democrat, Barack Obama, has destroyed the U.S. economy, alienated even many of his past supporters and is increasingly perceived as a loser – a one-termer, an epic mistake.

That's why you have one of the widest arrays of Republican candidates – experienced and unexperienced alike – vying for the opportunity to run against Obama.

While there is plenty of time for Republicans to sort things out beginning this weekend in the Iowa straw poll through the final primaries of 2012, I'd like to start using the process of elimination to make this sorting out job a little easier.

Not everyone running for the GOP nomination is up to the job.

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Why?

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The next president has a huge mess to clean up. The next president, quite literally and to a large extent, will determine whether America remains a free and self-governing nation under the rule of law and the will of the people. The next president cannot be weak, cannot be anything other than the polar political opposite of Obama, cannot be someone who will accept unconstitutional initiatives like Obamacare as water under the bridge. The next president is going to have to undo all of the damage Obama did to this nation and turn 180 degrees away from those policies – or America may cease to be the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known.

Here's the list of Republicans running or thinking about running:

Michele Bachmann

John Bolton

Hermain Cain

Chris Christie

Newt Gingrich

Jon Huntsman

Gary Johnson

Thad McCotter

Ron Paul

Sarah Palin

Tim Pawlenty

Rick Perry

Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum

That's 14 candidates or likely candidates – some of whom have not even officially entered the race.

So who is going to be sent home today because he or she doesn't make the Joseph Farah cut?

Let's start with the worst of the worst – the candidates I wouldn't support even if they won the Republican nomination and, God forbid, represented the best chance to defeating Obama in 2012.

Right off the bat there are two people on this list who fit that bill – Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. These two are so off-the-wall awful that they need to be eliminated from the competition at the earliest moment, lest they tempt fate and succeed.

I believe the nomination or election of either of these men will spell the end of America as we know it. There will be no rebirth politically – no "morning in America." The success of either one of these phony establishment elitists will result in either the re-election of Obama or the acceptance of Obama's "achievements" and "accomplishments" as permanent hallmarks of American life.

After all, Obama himself has said his health-care monstrosity was based, in part, on Romneycare in Massachusetts. I don't doubt it for a minute. Romney is still defending his political albatross. Do you really think he's going to dismantle Obama's?

What about Huntsman? Suffice it to say this country-club Republican accepted an appointment in Obama's administration. Do you really think someone like that is going to be ready, willing and able to dismantle everything Obama built in the last four years? No way.

What Romney and Huntsman will do, if they are given the chance, is to build on top of Obama's statist achievements – not take them apart brick by brick.

There are others on this list who I pray will not succeed – but none more than Romney and Huntsman. These two represent traps for real Republicans. The differences between them and Barack Obama are merely differences in degrees.

What we need is the diametric opposite of Obama in 2012 – someone who is more than just free-enterprise oriented. We need someone with a clear-headed worldview and vision of America's future, much like what Ronald Reagan brought to the table in 1980.

Look for future updates of this column in which we continue the process of elimination to find the very best Republican presidential candidates to take on Obama and everything he has inflicted upon this nation over the last three years.