It’s not hard to understand why so many conservatives spurn Mitt Romney. He’s had to slink away from past liberal positions on one major issue after another: health care reform, abortion, gun control and climate change. Many on the right are not reassured. They want a true conservative who’s been with them all along. That’s not surprising. What’s surprising is that they have turned, in their hour of need, to Newt Gingrich. The one-time House Speaker is a consistent conservative like I’m a duck-billed platypus. In a contest with Romney for most zigzags, Gingrich can more than hold his own.

The biggest complaint about Mitt is that he pushed a health insurance plan with an oppressive, Obama-like individual mandate. But in 1993, Gingrich announced, “I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance.” He reiterated that position as recently as 2008.