On the campaign trail in Iowa, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's populist message connected with voters. A frequently-repeated line of his hit home with those unnerved by the subprime crisis and by the global threats to America's manufacturing sector: "I want to be the president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off."

But one day's applause lines are the next day's misgivings.

LM Otero/Associated Press (ENLARGE)

'To win the White House, Republicans need a nominee who can be competitive in states drifting Democratic — Ohio or Colorado, among others. Romney can,' the AJC editorial board notes in its endorsement in the Republican race.

With a stock market turned bearish and with indicators that a global recession may be in the offing, voters shouldn't be drawn any more to the fantasy that the guy on the factory floor, however admirable and virtuous, should be leading the nation in a perilous world.

The qualities needed now in the Oval Office are business knowledge and experience, an understanding of economies and the imperatives of those who manage them around the world, an ability to problem-solve and to assess talent and to assemble the right team to accomplish a mission. What's needed, too, is a strong grounding in principle and steadfastness in the face of pressure and panic, but with the adaptability and flexibility to adjust to changing circumstances.

Arizona Sen. John McCain certainly has some of those qualities. His reputation is that of a maverick who has attached his name to legislation that many in the Republican base find objectionable — the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which was regarded as an attempt to abridge free speech, and the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, which critics called amnesty.

But McCain is also a man of principle, sticking to a strong support for the invasion of Iraq long after political expediencies may have quieted him. While he has criticized President Bush, from the start, for what McCain saw as a failure to commit enough troops to the effort, even now he remains committed to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq long enough to secure a stable government friendly to Western interests. There is no doubting his patriotism or national security credentials.

It's worth noting, too, that he has been endorsed by supply-sider Jack Kemp, former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a proponent of a strong military and one of the authors of the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction law, and U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a staunch opponent of pork-barrel spending. That group's conservative credentials are gold-plated.

But McCain does not have management experience nor wide-ranging expertise in business and economics. The Republican who best exemplifies all the qualities needed in a president is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a successful CEO and the target of Huckabee's populist broadlines.

Romney flatly rejects that sort of rhetoric.

"I just don't think that it's ever been successful to play against the employer," Romney said in a phone interview with the AJC editorial board. "I don't think you help the wage-earner by attacking the wage-payer and I just don't think it settles well with Republican voters" — a point also made by Sadie Fields, who chairs the Georgia Christian Alliance. "There's nothing wrong with making money," she said. "People who make money typically tend to know how to help you keep more of your money," she said.

For Republicans, it's time to be realistic.

And the reality is that the next president could be handed a Congress controlled by Democrats, as George W. Bush was in 2006. That demands a leader with experience in working with the opposition party.

Some social conservatives are uneasy with Romney because his views on abortion evolved from pro-choice to pro-life and — they fear — could evolve again. Some fiscal conservatives look to the Massachusetts health care plan adopted under Romney and see a costly model for universal coverage. Its elements include tax penalties for those who don't buy insurance, subsidies for some and a tax of $295 per employee per year on businesses that don't provide insurance.

Romney insists he'd not take the Massachusetts approach national and would, instead, encourage states to be innovative in dealing with rising health care costs and the uninsured.

As governor, "even though I had the line-item veto, in some respects it was a relatively weak tool because my Legislature was 85 percent Democrat. And, therefore, anything I vetoed could routinely be overridden."

In health care, he said, "we all agreed it would be a good thing for everybody to have health insurance. I didn't want government to provide it, and they were willing to accept my plan to get people insured with private insurance. And so we found common ground."

On a national level, "by expanding and deregulating the private health insurance market, we can decrease costs and ensure that more Americans have access to affordable, portable, quality, private health insurance," he said.

In addition to a pragmatism toward the opposition, another practical concern for Republicans is electability. To win the White House, Republicans need a nominee who can be competitive in states drifting Democratic — Ohio or Colorado, among others.

Romney can. On policy matters, the great differences are between the two parties — not, frankly, the serious contenders in either field.

It is for that reason that purists should recognize that the crucial test is which of these candidates can win in November. In all respects, Romney looks, sounds and acts presidential, projecting competence and the intelligence to deal comfortably with policy nuance and complexity. In a perilous world, whether the peril is terrorism, global competition or a tanking economy, Mitt Romney is the Republican who inspires confidence in his ability to lead.

"I will not need briefings on how the economy works; I know how it works," Romney said last week in Florida. "I've been there. I think it's time to have a president who understands the economy, understands jobs, understands why jobs come and go."

That should be an appealing argument to Republicans.

— Jim Wooten, for the editorial board