For retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West, Republican candidate for Congress in Florida’s 22nd District, one word seems to sum up his campaign, his career, his life: “leadership.”

“We’ve got to rediscover what leadership is in this country,” West says during an interview in Washington. “In the last 2008 election cycle, we saw American Idol play on a grand scheme. And unfortunately, we believed that giving a good teleprompter speech meant leadership.”