THERE ARE MANY standards by which to judge a presidential candidate. We could judge the candidate by party establishment support. Alternatively, we might select a candidate by his or her proximity to our state or the familiarity that comes with repeated runs for President. However, one of the best predictors of future adherence to principles and success in governing according to those principles is past performance.

Using the measure of positive accomplishments, only one candidate this year has achieved the meaningful, conservative change in Washington that we need. That candidate is the only one whose past performance will ensure the conservative, free market, pro-liberty solutions that will save our country and return us to prosperity. That candidate is Newt Gingrich.

While President Obama promised both hope and change, the results have been a disastrous failure with a single accomplishment: a massive growth in government financed at the expense of liberty and the future of our children and our grandchildren. He has perfected the art of transgenerational wealth transfer: from our children and grandchildren to us.

All who believe in limited government, believe in New Hampshire’s motto of “Live free or die,” and believe their children and grandchildren deserve an America as secure and financially sound as when we became adults, know we cannot continue down Barack Obama’s disastrous path to the bankrupting of our freedom and the dreams of future generations. That is why it is not enough just to defeat Barack Obama; we need to replace him with a President who has a clear sense of where the country needs to go and whose past performance demonstrates an ability to get there.

We need to replace this failed presidency with a President who will ensure that the era of American greatness is not over. To achieve this, we cannot afford candidates who put electoral convenience ahead of bringing the transformative change that will restore America’s place in the world, while making our federal government smaller, more efficient, and less of an impediment to our economy and to our liberty.

After spending considerable time reviewing the candidates for President, and coming to like and admire many of them—perhaps most of them — based on what I have learned as New Hampshire House Speaker about the focus, energy and principles needed to achieve fundamental change in government, one person rose to the top as the person certain to bring positive, transformative change to Washington, and that person is Newt Gingrich. Newt is the one candidate who most certainly will get America back to the ideals that made our country great. Newt Gingrich unequivocally will restore fiscal discipline to Washington.

Newt’s past performance and record of accomplishments are exactly what we need in Washington. While revisionist historians would like to credit the tremendous success of the 1990s to Bill Clinton, all Bill Clinton had to show before Newt Gingrich’s leadership in the House was a failed stimulus plan, a failed attempt at national health care, a major tax increase, a bill to restrict Second Amendment rights, and midnight basketball. Then, Newt took over and reform came to Washington.

It was not Bill Clinton who displayed the political courage to hold the line on federal spending, leading to the first balanced budget in four decades and four consecutive balanced budgets. It was the House of Representatives, led by Newt Gingrich. It was not Bill Clinton who crafted the welfare reform that lifted millions out of poverty. Instead, Clinton twice vetoed welfare reform. It was wholly a consequence of the dogged determination of Newt Gingrich’s House of Representatives that Bill Clinton finally agreed to making welfare a bridge to work and not a dead end of dependency.

Congress, and not Bill Clinton, pushed the tax cut of 1997 with a capital gains cut that produced millions of jobs. These huge accomplishments would not have taken place without Newt Gingrich’s vision and leadership. We desperately need that leadership in the Oval Office today.

These changes will be hard. I know firsthand from what we are trying to accomplish in New Hampshire. The only way to get there is with someone who has a clear goal for America, an ability to articulate complex ideas simply and understandably, and uncompromising determination to see things through. Newt Gingrich is not only that person, but he has shown us repeatedly that he is that person. He is the right man at the right time for the presidency. We need to support him in delivering the leadership America so desperately needs today.

Rep. Bill O’Brien, R-Mont Vernon, is speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.