Mitt Romney picks up a needed endorsement from National Review. With Huckabee nipping at his heels and threatening to derail his early primary strategy, this endorsement carries a lot of weight with those in the conservative movement. Hint: George W. Bush is not a conservative. The crux of National Review's argument can be founded in the following passage;

"Uniting the conservative coalition is not enough to win a presidential election, but it is a prerequisite for building on that coalition. Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country."

NR thinks that Fred and McCain are solid conservatives but that Romney's executive skill exudes,"competence", which is much needed following the debacles that were Katrina, Harriet Meyers, and the Department of Justice during the Bush Administration. I agree with Lee at A Bama Blog on the reason Fred failed to earn National Review's endorsement despite being the most "consistent conservative." I think Fred or McCain have both made their case for V.P. I think a Southerner with foreign policy experience on the ticket would help a Northeastern governor in the general election.