Peggy Noonan: Republicans have to vet their 2012 presidential candidates

Peggy Noonan writes that Republican primary voters and everyone who's involved in nominating the party's 2012 candidate for president have to look for a candidate who will be both conservative and appealing to the independents who determine the outcomes of presidential elections.

At this point in time, she warns, the next GOP nominee is likely to become our next president. But if the party nominates someone who turns off the middle, Obama can come back.

That's a warning to not nominate Sara Palin or Mike Huckabee because they both are so extreme on religious and social issues that they would be easy to demonize and defeat along with most GOP congressional and state candidates.

Coloradans should understand the importance of that warning more than voters in almost any other state.

Questions GOP primary votes should be asking, according to Noonan:

Who can lead? Who can persuade the center? Who can summon the best from people? Who will seem credible (as a person who leads must)? Whose philosophy is both sound and discernible? Who has the intellectual heft? Who has the experience? Who seems capable of wisdom?

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