Now you might get scared. I have just read an excellent article by Erin McPike at RealClearPolitics. In this article, she examined Mitt Romney’s reluctance to go on trade missions - money-wasting junkets - while the Governor of Massachusetts, and the success he realized while not blowing the money with which the people of Massachusetts entrusted him. Read the article here.

Mr. Romney found more efficient ways to promote trade with Massachusetts than jetting around the globe on the taxpayers’ dime. He saw Massachusetts’ $3 billion budget gap at the time, and concluded that he wasn’t going to add to that. I don’t think that I can applaud that move loudly enough! And Mr. Romney added 44% to Massachusetts’ exports without blowing taxpayer money! Mr. Romney simply invited people to come and see Massachusetts; the rest happened without the need to invert the average Massachusetts man and shake cash out of him.

As Mrs. McPike points out in her article, Mr. Romney exhibited similar frugality as he managed the Winter Olympics. Instead of luxuriating and blowing money, Mr. Romney decided that the better course was "eliminating entourages, minimizing stays and staying in economy hotels." He replaced airplane trips to exotic locales (GSA Las Vegas, anyone?) with videoconferences. Some measure of austerity will be needed to rescue the United states of America from its present malaise; Mr. Romney appears by all indications to start the austerity in his own office.

In an era where Michelle Obama spends $1/2 million of taxpayers’ money on a luxury Spanish vacation , perhaps voters will elect to experience a pleasant change of pace, namely, someone who acts as if the taxpayers’ money is not his own private playtime fund. Mitt Romney strongly appears to be that man. Going back to Massachusetts, Deval Patrick’s first post-Romney trade mission spent over $300,000 of Massachusetts’ tax money, returning no significant thing to the people for the money spent to hob-nob with people who exist not to do actual business, but rather simply to hob-nob.

So what do we take from this? That the incumbent president is a vacation-addicted tyrant who enjoys the trappings of office far more than making any hard decision? There are arguments that support this position. That his opponent is a frugal man who knows the value of a dollar and is organically averse to wasting the money of others? There are strong arguments for this premise.

Does Mr. Romney’s frugality with taxpayer money, his sound stewardship, in and of itself constitute enough reason to vote for him? No. However, it is a large heavy boulder on his side of the scales. In an era where the government has run up ruinous debt in ventures that are mostly wasteful, I love the idea of electing a man whose actions prove out that he hates wastefulness.

Remember that I said that I would have no need to hold my nose while voting for Mitt Romney? Here is yet another reason for Conservatives to dance in the streets for Romney. Mr. Romney is the Tea Party’s biggest hope personified, with decades of actions to back up his rhetoric.

Perhaps the best thing to happen to us was the hard vetting of Mr. Romney by the parade of candidates during this primary. Now the good stuff is coming out in droves. And, I for one am excited.