Ever since I got my Republican primary ballot the other day, I’ve been heming and hawing over who I was going to vote for. I knew it wasn’t going to be for Newt Gingrich: for me, his whining and petulant tone ever since his South Carolina primary win has really soured me on him - which is too bad. I do think he has the best ideas of all the candidates still left in the race, but if I want whiny and petulant in the Oval Office, I can simply vote for Back Obama’s re-election.

But what about the other three? Ron Paul, with his stances on the size and role of the federal government and our reckless monetary and fiscal policy has actually started to grow on me, but there’s something about him that makes me very uneasy. Mitt Romney, simply, put has not closed the deal with me. I don’t know if I like him or not, but I sure don’t trust him. Which leaves me with former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. Because his reasons for choosing Santorum mirror my own, I’ll let Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey do the talking for me:

Before I explain that decision, let’s be clear. I could cast a vote happily for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in a general election. Both are massive improvements over the current incumbent, and both have admirable qualities that would reflect well on the GOP once in office — even if those admirable qualities aren’t always on display now. I will enthusiastically support any of those three men should they win the nomination. My focus will be on beating Barack Obama and promoting the conservative agenda, in that order, throughout 2012, and I also believe that any of those three could beat Obama in a general election campaign.

Why Santorum? In my estimation, Santorum is the last consistent conservative standing, and the only one both promoting the conservative agenda and campaigning as a conservative in the race. That doesn’t make Santorum perfect; he lacks the executive experience I’d like to see, and some of his positions in the past and present give me pause. However, compared to the heterodoxies of his competitors in the GOP race, Santorum has a superior record on promoting conservative policies and values.

Even more than that, though, Santorum has demonstrated a level of personal integrity in this race that outshines the rest of the field. Santorum has campaigned with blue-collar Reagan Democrats in mind, pushing for an economic plan that would revitalize manufacturing and small business. He could easily have tipped over into class-warfare populism while Gingrich and Romney bashed each other over their work at Bain and Freddie Mac in order to ingratiate himself with that sector by playing on latent envy. Instead, he defended capitalism and both of his competitors on the campaign trail more effectively than either could defend themselves. In contrast, Romney keeps demonstrating a lack of fluency in conservative politics and philosophy, while Gingrich has conducted a personal, angry campaign that threatens to reinforce every negative stereotype about conservatives, both at times putting themselves and their ambitions above the party they seek to lead.

My vote in the Arizona GOP Primary goes to Rick Santorum.