To paraphrase an old Kingston Trio song:

They’re rioting in Greece, they’re occupying America.

There’s unrest in China, and Middle East hysteria.

The whole world is festering with unhappy contrarians

The Islamists hate everyone, and everyone hates Americans

Palestinians hate Israelis, someone hates the Dutch.

And no one likes anybody very much.

Amidst all this chaos, Americans want a president that will restore order, prosperity, and national security. It’s difficult to imagine how we can elect the right person, however, when we spend more time focusing on form than substance.

Republicans must choose their nominee on the policies and programs the candidate articulates, not on the manner in which he articulates them, and the candidate's ability to carry them out. If Republicans want to defeat President Obama, we need to nominate the candidate with the best policy solutions, leadership skills, and experience, not the one that emerges with the fewest scars from spurious attacks.

Most Republican primary voters haven't made up their minds on which candidate we will support. We can tell you which one of the top-tier candidates is the best debater—Newt Gingrich. We can tell you which one comes across as the most authentic—Herman Cain. We can tell you which one has the best record of job creation as a Governor—Rick Perry. And we can tell you which one raises the most money—Mitt Romney.

What most of us can't tell you is which one has the best policy solutions because what we hear most are talking points about general principles, and because analyses of their candidacies overwhelmingly are about how they run their campaigns and the gaffes they make. The video of Rick Perry’s over-animated speech is replayed on every channel. Pundit panels tell us what Herman Cain must do to get past stories about 15-year-old sexual harassment allegations; and they tell us that Perry and Romney don’t like each other. We know that Gingrich is a nice guy, but undisciplined, and he has political baggage.

All the Republican candidates talk about how they will revive the U.S. economy and create jobs. They tell us they will make the U.S. energy independent, get tough with Iran, keep our military strong, and deal intelligently and forthrightly the upheaval in the Middle East and with China. But none of them tell us in any detail how they will do these things or the kind of people they will appoint to their cabinet to help them do it.

We know that Republicans believe in lower taxes and relieving business of burdensome regulations. Cain has proposed his 9-9-9 plan. Perry and Gingrich have flat tax plans. Romney has a 500 page plan that would have to be enacted before we know what’s in it. I for one would like to watch a two-hour Republican debate on nothing but the candidates tax plans, with each candidate given ten minutes to explain it before the others start trying to shoot holes in it. The Cain-Gingrich Lincoln-Douglas style debate Saturday was a step in the right direction.

How would a Republican president make us energy independent when environmental groups will tie up efforts to drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) and offshore along the east and west coasts for years in the courts? I’d like to hear a debate on how we achieve energy-independence.

I heard Herman Cain tell Bill O’Reilly that he would double the number of Aegis missile-defense cruisers and deploy them near Iran, and that he would make the U.S. energy independent, driving down the price of oil and putting Iran’s economy—their ability to fund weapons and missile programs—under greater pressure. OK, sounds good, but I’d like to hear the Republican candidates debate that issue for more than two or three minutes. What will they do if Iran remains undeterred? What will they do if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Finally, I know none of the presidential candidates will tell us in advance who they would appoint to key cabinet positions; but one of the most challenging problems a new U.S. president faces when he takes office is appointing cabinet secretaries and the thousands of other political appointees that run the federal government. I want to know what kind of person each candidate will appoint to key departments. What qualifications would the new president demand they have?

I don’t care how many paid staffers the candidates have or which ones have quit lately. I don’t care which candidate has the best rehearsed debating performance. I don’t want to be bombarded by 24/7 media coverage of anonymous allegations of sexual harassment. I want to know the details of how the Republican candidates for President plan to govern and restore America. And when the Republican nominee is chosen, I want him to challenge Barack Obama on substance, not form.