The Gingrich File

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Jun 9, 2011.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Where to Begin?

    It's hard to know where to begin with someone like Newt Gingrich, so let's start with the present:

    A number of senior aides have left the 2012 presidential campaign team of Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, citing strategic differences.

    "When the campaign and the candidate disagree on the path, they've got to part ways," said ex-aide Rick Tyler, according to the Washington Post.

    The news will hit Mr Gingrich's hopes of being the Republican nominee to challenge President Barack Obama.

    But he said his "solutions-orientated" campaign was still moving forward.

    His campaign got off to a halting start when he criticised a plan popular among Republicans to slash and privatise a healthcare programme for the elderly.

    Staff were also reportedly concerned after he took a recent holiday cruise.

    Mr Gingrich's campaign manager Rob Johnson and his entire senior staff, including strategists in early primary election states, were among those to quit on Thursday.

    Scott Rials, a longtime aide who joined the departure, told the Associated Press that he doubted Mr Gingrich's ability to win the nomination.

    "I think the world of him. But at the end of the day we just could not see a clear path to win, and there was a question of commitment," he said.

    On his Facebook page on Thursday, Mr Gingrich indicated he would stay in the race.


    (BBC)

    When Democrats compete to challenge an incumbent Republican president, liberals tend to regard seemingly hopeless candidacies, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton's 2004 run, or even the respectable but wildly unsuccessful effort by former Sen. Caron Moseley Braun, as issue advocacy campaigns.

    With the GOP field this year so presently disorganized, it is hard to figure who falls where. In some cases, such as former Sen. Rick Santorum, it is easy enough to figure; he is playing to and for the social conservatives—clearly, barring some apocalyptic collapse of the American political structure, Santorum cannot win. One might suggest the same of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, if she declares as expected.

    Some consider Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty the foremost "serious" candidate, with the adjective taken to mean someone who actually can compete in the general election.

    Which leaves a tier of candidates like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who bring leagues of devoted fans and followers to the contest, and certainly have a penchant for headlines—thus posturing them as significant players in the early rounds—who cannot win the general election.

    One could easily suggest that these will be relegated to the advocacy tier, but American politics is also so chaotic that Palin or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich could seriously unsettle a candidate like Pawlenty as the Republican Party moves toward its convention in Tampa at the end of August, 2012.

    Perhaps, then, the significance of Scott Rials' suggestion about Gingrich's commitment to the campaign. For whatever reason, bad feelings seem apparent. Perhaps the idea that Gingrich can't win seems an unexpected acknowledgment of the obvious, but the insinuation that he lacks the commitment to run a serious campaign is damaging, and not something one drops into the discussion if the parting of ways is amiable.

    To the other, some liberals regard a Gingrich campaign as a capitalist maneuver. Much like Palin and Trump, Gingrich has a profitable venture outside the realm of genuine politics—part of which involves giving merit awards to businesses willing to pay his organization five thousand dollars. A "presidential candidacy", as such, not only creates visibility but also, in doing so, can affect long-term profit projections.

    It has been a rough enough campaign already for Newt Gingrich. One need not look to history at this point to see some element of sad comedy in effect.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    British Broadcasting Corporation. "Newt Gingrich: Campaign aides quit 2012 team". BBC News. June 9, 2011. BBC.co.uk. June 9, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13722318
     
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  3. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Newt, We Hardly Knew Ye?

    Newt, We Hardly Knew Ye?

    ABC News has, for all intents and purposes, called the first casualty of the 2012 GOP nomination process. Surprise, it's Newt Gingrich:

    While Newt Gingrich promises to soldier on his campaign for the presidency – despite the mass resignation of some 16 top aides – some of his former friends and aides are ready to throw in the towel for him.

    On ABC's "Top Line" today, Rich Galen, a former top aide to Gingrich when he served as House speaker, said the presidential campaign is essentially over, victimized by the character flaws that many of Gingrich's critics identified from the start.

    "I'm only surprised because in the beginning I said this thing would be over in 45 days, and I was about 10 days short. So, I was more optimistic," Galen told us.

    Asked if that means he thinks the campaign is over, Galen said it's not possible for Gingrich to re-create the campaign infrastructure he lost yesterday.

    "He can pretend," Galen said. "[But] the notion that Newt can do this, on the fly, in the middle of this thing … who would join the campaign? Again, I don't have any animus towards Newt, but as a professional in this business, who would say, 'OK, look, maybe, this time, the third re-start will be the right way to do this, and I'll join up because maybe they really do have money hidden around in places that we don't know about.'"

    That was quick.

    Of course, how long will he flop along now like a fish out of water?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Klein, Rick. "Former Aide Rich Galen: Gingrich 'Can Pretend,' but Campaign Over". The Note. June 10, 2011. Blogs.ABCNews.com. June 11, 2011. http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/20...n-gingrich-can-pretend-but-campaign-over.html
     
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  5. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    There is the possibility, an astronomically unlikely possibility, but not impossible, that Newt might win the presidency, if that day ever comes, this thread will look mighty embarrassing for you.

    Compared many of his counterparts, Newt was actually the better candidate, yes I know that a horrible thing to say, but he was one of the prettier turds of the pile.
     
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  7. superstring01 Moderator

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    . . . . is he even still running after. . . you know. . . his entire campaign leadership walked out on him?

    ~String
     
  8. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Well he says he is. I think he supposed to show up at the Republican debate on Monday.
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I think he thinks we're supposed to think so

    It seems he thinks so. The AP reported on Friday:

    Gingrich told reporters outside his suburban Virginia home that he was committed to campaigning "very intensely" for the White House. He attributed his aides' departure to disagreements about strategy.

    "There is a fundamental strategic difference between the traditional consulting community and the kind of campaign I want to run," he said. "We'll find out over the next year who's right."

    And in a separate article they tell us the former House Speaker is slated to give a foreign policy speech in Beverly Hills tonight, before the Republican Jewish Coalition.

    The West Coast speech had been planned well before the Gingrich campaign imploded.

    But as the former House Speaker scrambles to prove he remains a viable contender, the appearance allows him to showcase the two strongest sides of his personality: policy heavyweight and verbal bomb thrower.

    Gingrich argues that "both Israel and America are at a dangerous crossroads at which the survival of Israel and the safety of the United States both hang in the balance."

    Gingrich was also set to deliver red meat to the pro-Israel audience. He will pledge that, if elected president, he would sign an executive order on his first day in office moving the American embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Palestinians contend moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would be recognition of Israel's claim to the city. Gingrich argues that Israel has every right as a sovereign nation to choose its own capital and Americans should respect that choice.

    Greg Sargent, I think, might have hit upon the most cogent explanation of the Gingrich candidacy on Thursday, as the story unfolded:

    It seems pretty clear that Newt believed that he could run for President on the force of his ideas alone — amplified and disseminated through new technology. After all, not long ago, Newt stated this explicitly:

    "It's going to take a while for the news media to realize that you're covering something that happens once or twice in a century, a genuine grass-roots campaign of very big ideas," said Gingrich. "I expect it to take a while for it to sink in."​

    Gingrich, it seems safe to assume, probably came to feel the same way about his aides. They were insisting that he'd be unable mount a credible candidacy without doing all the grunt work of organizing, tending to the grassroots, sucking up to donors and local potentates, etc. etc. Indeed, Newt's Iowa staff has now also resigned en masse, precisely because he seemed unwilling to do the work necessary to keep a presidential campaign running.

    All these lemmings, clearly, were unable to grasp that his candidacy was something historic; something profoundly transformative; even something Messianic. Imprisoned by their inability to comprehend that the force of Newt's ideas alone would be enough to propel his candidacy, they walked.

    Of course, you really can't fault Newt for seeing things this way. Commentators and Republicans have been telling him that he's one of the GOP's intellectual deities for at least a decade now. Why wouldn't he believe them?

    In all seriousness, it has been plainly obvious from the start that Newt never had any intention of running a real presidential campaign, and that the whole thing was nothing but an exercise in Messianism. Why is anyone even surprised by any of this?

    But, for the moment, yes, it seems Newt Gingrich wants us to believe he thinks he's running for president.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Associated Press. "Gingrich defections, Palin emails cloud GOP presidential picture ahead of Monday's NH debate". PostPolitics. June 10, 2011. WashingtonPost.com. June 12, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...days-nh-debate/2011/06/10/AGJtsFPH_story.html

    —————. "With foreign policy speech, Gingrich restarting sputtering campaign in wake of staff exodus". The Washington Post. June 12, 2011. WashingtonPost.com. June 12, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...f-staff-exodus/2011/06/12/AGDD2vRH_story.html

    Sargent, Greg. "The world wasn't ready for Newt’s presidential candidacy". The Plum Line. June 9, 2011. WashingtonPost.com. June 12, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ntial-candidacy/2011/03/03/AG2CqdNH_blog.html
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    The Capitalist Aboard a Sinking Ship

    Something About a Sinking Ship

    There is an old Saturday Night Live sketch called "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave", but it starred Belushi, so thinking about it is depressing:

    Two top fundraisers for Newt Gingrich have quit, the latest in a series of staff departures that have badly hamstrung the former House Speaker’s 2012 presidential bid.

    Fundraising director Jody Thomas and fundraising consultant Mary Heitman have both abandoned the campaign, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond confirmed Tuesday.

    Their resignations come less than two weeks after more than a dozen staffers — including the campaign manager, chief strategist and key operatives in states like Iowa and South Carolina — departed en masse.


    (Cillizza)

    And yet the campaign—what's left of it—marches on. "We are going to duct-tape together one coalition of Americans after another that believe in his large, bold vision of change," explaind R. C. Hammond, perhaps the only Gingrich spokesman left among the "over a dozen staffers" on the campaign.

    The scuttlebutt, of course, is that Gingrich disdains the daily labor of fundraising, though that might be a result of his largely hands-off fundraising efforts through book sales and trading business merit awards for PAC donations.

    Given those fundraising realities, Gingrich will likely be left with a campaign that centers on appearances at candidate forums and debates and making speeches on a variety of policy topics.

    “Newt’s strength is his ability to put forward bold and new ideas,” said Hammond.

    Campaigns, of course, require money to run — even if they are operating on a bare-bones level like Gingrich appears to be doing at the moment.

    In a way, though, Newt Gingrich might actually have a point to make. Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post notes that "former [Gingrich] advisers said he didn’t have the $25,000 to pay the filing fee to enter the Ames Straw Poll or the $30,000 needed to buy the list of previous Iowa caucus attendees".

    Setting aside Gingrich's penchant for chartered jets, which cost enough to make a difference, I am reminded of a business conundrum my father encountered twenty years ago. His company was trying to sell track hurdles to high schools, but needed a certain certification. They contacted the certifying body to find out what they needed to do, and it turned out that they only needed to build the hurdles to certain dimensions, with certain adjustment demands, and then write a check to the organization for fifty thousand dollars. There was no quality or safety standard, and nobody was actually going to inspect the things to make sure they actually met the dimensional standards. In other words, the certification was just a money scheme.

    Twenty-five thousand to get your name on the ballot in Ames? Thirty thousand to get access to the attendee history? Well, now we know what the Ames Straw Poll is really all about. Of course, who are the GOP to argue? It's capitalism, after all.

    So, yes, perhaps there is a point to it all. One can reasonably suggest the strangeness of a presidential campaign being effectively required to hire on all the cottage-industry parasites in order to be considered serious. But Newt Gingrich, to the one, is known primarily as a sensationalist, adulterer, and prig; it's hard to imagine he's going to find sympathy among any but his devotees. Furthermore, Newt Gingrich is a Republican, so it's hard to spare any sympathy for a fiscal conservative who has run afoul of the demands of capitalism. Indeed, the irony is very nearly amusing.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Cillizza, Chris. "Gingrich campaign hit by more departures". The Fix. June 21, 2011. WashingtonPost.com. June 21, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...more-departures/2011/06/21/AGR9TceH_blog.html
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    The Gingrich Touch

    The Gingrich Touch ...

    ... ain't golden ...

    Newt Gingrich’s struggling presidential ambitions appear to have claimed another victim: his own organization.

    American Solutions, a fund-raising organization that Mr. Gingrich formed in 2007 to finance and promote his speaking and traveling schedule, has gone bankrupt and closed its doors, according to a watchdog organization.

    The Center for Public Integrity attributed the news to the group’s chairman, Joe Gaylord, a longtime associate of Mr. Gingrich.

    In four years, the group, formally called American Solutions for Winning the Future, raised more than $50 million. As a so-called 527 organization, the group could raise unlimited amounts of money. Mr. Gingrich used the group as a way to promote his ideas of government reform.

    Campaign finance reports showed that much of that money went to pay for charter flights for Mr. Gingrich as he traveled the country, keeping his political profile high.


    (Shear)

    ... unless he's pissing on you and trying to say it's raining.

    When he is finished with his wannabe tour, he won't even have his regular fundraising organization left.

    To the other, it should be noted that Mr. Gingrich was not officially in charge of the operation at the end; his decision to pursue the presidency obliged him to step away, and the administration he left to run the organization in his absence simply couldn't keep the thing afloat.

    But at what point do his family and friends stage an intervention, and say, "Newt, honey, this isn't healthy"?
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Shear, Michael D. "Gingrich Fund-Raising Group Shuts Down". The Caucus. August 26, 2011. TheCaucus.Blogs.NYTimes.com. August 26, 2011. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/gingrich-fund-raising-group-shuts-down/
     
  12. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    12,461
    A recent WSJ article suggests The Gingrich campaign may not be dead after all.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577026041280212400.html
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    (Insert Title Here)

    My God, she's like a satirical sketch of art critics.
     
  14. superstring01 Moderator

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    12,110
    I'm starting to change my opinions on the guy's campaign (not on my lack of support thereof, which has not budged one bit--the man's a vile worm). Sadly, Gingrich is one of the most intelligent people to be involved in politics, a testimony to the fact that brains do not an ethical man make you.**

    He's like the fucking Energizer Bunny, though. And worse, he's sitting out while Cain, Bachmann and Perry all self-destruct. Should the trend continue, it'll be Romney and Gingrich come January. The decision will be a fait acompli by April, regardless of which states have not cast their ballots.

    ~String

    __________________________________________________________
    **Our long-lost friend CounteZero was born and raised on Gingrich's district. I had the pleasure of reading an article written about Gingrich from when Mr. Zero was working for the Atlanta C.J. as a reporter some years ago. It was an interesting piece and earned him an interesting remark on several of the right wing talk-shows. At any rate, Gingrich is a scumbag on a level that most people only sense but are not fully aware of. Turns out, he made it known that his votes were for sale to the highest bidder especially of those bidders were from the conservative persuasion. No wonder the soulless android married a Stepford Wife.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    If it's there to be found ....

    And with everything in American politics being relative, what, really, can Gingrich say or do that will explode any worse than the detritus of his personal and political history?

    Of course, one hesitates to speculate because if there is actually something that exponentially larger than we've seen in terms of the Ticking Time Newt, he very well might find it.
     
  16. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    33,264
    If he's so smart why doesn't he see that he won't ever make it to the promised land? :shrug:
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting Times

    The GOP's Interesting Times: Newt Rising From the Ashes?

    Yes, I admit, this is getting interesting.

    Well, okay, sort of.

    Is it possible that GOP primary voters are so ambivalent about former Gov. Mitt Romney’s presidential bid that they might turn instead to a thrice-married former lawmaker – one who has a penchant for bestowing extravagant gifts on his wife during a time of economic malaise?

    A new CBS poll suggests that some Republicans are at least flirting with the idea.

    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is experiencing a mini-surge in November – an apparent sign that voters are sampling the wider field as their affections for some alternatives to Mr. Romney, particularly businessman Herman Cain and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, begin to diminish. The new national CBS survey of Republican primary voters shows Mr. Cain at 18 percent, a modest advantage over Romney and Mr. Gingrich, who are tied at 15 percent.

    Gingrich is the only one of the trio to see an uptick in certain pockets of his numbers since October.

    “Any port in a storm,” says Ross Baker, political science professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. “With Romney distasteful, Cain unelectable, Perry mortally wounded, where can Republicans turn? To the man whose scandals are years old and who has resurrected himself as a kind of elder statesman.

    He adds, “If his solipsism doesn’t get in the way, he may be a strong candidate.”

    The CBS poll, conducted in the field Nov. 6-10, shows that Mr. Cain, mired in sexual harassment allegations, has lost support among women since October: Then, 28 percent backed the former Godfather’s Pizza chief, but now, 15 percent support him. Romney, meanwhile, has seen his backing with men erode, but Gingrich has received an eight-point bump among them.


    (Skalka Tulumello)

    The Christian Science Monitor, as well as many other media outlets, is considering the significance of Newt Gingrich's recent rise in Republican polls.

    To the one, the GOP frontrunner-go-round is a curious phenomenon. To the other, it may well be that as pundits and analysts scratch their heads about the meaning and significance of the situation, they are asking the wrong questions.

    I. Anybody But Mitt

    Despite much focus on Mitt Romney's religion, conservatives have many reasons to be wary of the man presumed to be the eventual GOP nominee. Mitt Romney's political prowess might well count against him in a time when voters—especially partisans—demand a certain degree of purity. It could also be that Romney's prowess is simply clumsy. While Rick Perry cannot even manage to appropriately chastise the former Masssachusetts governor, the spectre of "Romneycare" and his past willingness to work with more liberal advocates in social platform issues raise doubts among conservative voters; his time with Bain Capital, including a notorious photograph of Romney and other executives with cash spilling out of their pockets may well hinder his chances with the swing bloc.

    For whatever reasons, though, Republican voters and poll respondents seem unwilling to settle on Mitt.

    And while this certainly appears to be a certain amount of confusion within party ranks, there are other possibilities to consider.

    II. The Reality Show

    Often a subject of cynicism and derision, the idea of "reality television" seems to permeate the Republican campaign. Setting aside undeclared former frontrunner Donald Trump's actual reality television show, or that of Sarah Palin, who still seems to be waiting in the wings to make an eleventh-hour announcement, what does the current field of declared candidates, the multitude of debates, and the revolving anybody-but-Mitt frontrunner pageant suggest about this year's Republican primary preaseason?

    It well could be a marketing strategy. There was the Trump, the "outsider". And then there was Michele Bachmann, the crazy lady. After that, conservative voters fell in with Rick Perry for reasons that, in hindsight, don't really make sense. Presently, Herman Cain's time at the top, the reign of the Walnut, might well be coming to an end.

    In that sense, Cain is a fascinating subject. While he gained traction beating racial issues over the head with rhetoric more comfortable to white conservatives, the candidate and many of his supporters hold his color up as an example of how the GOP and Tea Party aren't racist.

    This sort of basic dissonance in the discussion is the kind of superficial excrement that drives reality television.

    Over the long run, though, what lends an appearance of wisdom to the approach is that, starting well over a year before the election, Republicans found a way to occupy the media cycle. As long as people are more focused on the Republican pack's message output, they are less focused on reality.

    Today, a compliant media, including the alleged liberal staple MSNBC, gave some attention to the frequency with which the Republican candidates are pushing the one-term Obama message. While it certainly makes for superficially compelling viewing, none of it delves into the issues explaining why President Obama ought to be doomed to one term. Policy debates are lost amid the cacophony of campaign rhetoric, and after two and a half years of staunch, stonewall opposition, this is to the GOP's benefit; the last thing they want voters considering is why the president has been unable to make any great strides with the economy and unemployment.

    Thus the audience spends a certain amount of time thinking about the Cain campaign's threat to make sexual harassment accusers regret coming forward. Or whether Rick Perry was drunk while reading David Letterman's Top Ten List. Or whether Newt Gingrich's "mini-surge" is significant. None of this focuses on the vital themes of the current election cycle. Rather, it's more like the microdrama of voting someone off the island, or choosing the best singer or dancers, or deciding who has the great and mysterious X-factor (previously known simply as "it").

    The reality show approach bears much weight in message control; the media cycle refocuses anew on superficial candidate personalities, instead of deeper, more vital issues. That may well be the purpose of the melodrama known as the Republican primary preseason, to exert influence over the news cycle.

    III. Comparison Shopping

    The problem facing the GOP is that its obstructionist success has depended largely on the annexation of an otherwise unruly movement known as the Tea Party. The Republican Party emerged from the 2008 election with twenty percent support; only one in five poll respondents would identify as Republicans. The momentum the GOP has gathered over the intervening years has depended largely on tinfoil paranoia about a Kenyan Socialist Nazi Communist Anti-Colonial Manchurian Candidate named Barack Obama. It gone so far that Rush Limbaugh felt safe advocating the Lord's Resistance Army on the grounds that Joseph Kony's tribe of terror and human catastrophe claims Biblical goals.

    Having succeeded to some degree in stonewalling the American economic recovery, the Republicans now face an astounding problem: Their entire field of candidates seems weak. While Mitt Romney seems to be the only candidate who polls strongly against President Obama, he still loses. Conservatives are, for various reasons—be it ideological purity, strategic caution, or religious bias—reluctant to back a candidate like Romney, who can be criticized as simply being "Obama lite". While Bill Clinton successfully stole Republican planks in 1992, it will be a harder challenge for Romney. Not only is the great demon of conservative theology, "Obamacare", styled largely after Romney's insurance mandate in Massachusetts, the president has played a Clintonian theme, backing business while trying to harvest some useful progress from doing so. It will be problematic for Romney to advocate a similar platform when his expected voting base—Republicans—have attempted to capitalize on constant denunciations of Obama's policies as left-wing extremism.

    So Republican supporters are left to comparison shop. Is there anyone else who can run against Obama? Harvesting the tinfoil right is problematic, as Bachmann's frontrunning stint reminded. The religious right is damaged by the failure of its candidate, Rick Perry, to achieve any progress. The business front is hurt by Herman Cain's pandering to economic right-wing hardliners.

    Newt Gingrich, in that context, is something of an enigma. A backroom mainstay in the years since he led the Republican Revolution of 1994 to his own ethical downfall, he is an eloquent, well-educated man willing to throw the kind of rhetorical Molotovs that thrill the conservative base, and may well present the kind of intellectual distractions to liberal opponents that could win him traction with the swing bloc.

    But it's a huge risk. Gingrich is as much a societal elitist as one can find in modern politics. His morals are of questionable value in practice, and best described as some formulation of situational ethics. But in the end, all this shopping around only plays back to the idea of reality television. We get a pageant of colorful but useless figures, and the GOP exerts the influence of a presidential contest in the news cycle.

    It is an interesting plan, and perhaps one of the more impressive examples of long-term strategic thinking we've seen out of the right wing in recent years, but it is also hard to believe that the Republican rank and file would send Newt Gingrich to the Show in a year bringing such powerful and persuasive political demands to the arena.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Skalka Tulumello, Jennifer. "Newt Gingrich: Will his mini-surge in the polls last?" The Christian Science Monitor. November 11, 2011. CSMonitor.com. November 11, 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Electi...ingrich-Will-his-mini-surge-in-the-polls-last
     
  18. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    It appears that The Newt is now the flavor of the day. Newt can talk the Tea Party crazy talk. But wait till the Tea Partiers learn of his history. There is a reason why the man resigned as speaker. And the man has a lot of other baggage with him that the Tea Party will likely not like - especially since they don't like it in Romney (e.g. individual mandate).
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Famous Last Words?

    Gingrich Today, or, All the Newt That's Fit to Print

    "It can't be that Santorum or Gingrich will get a week each as frontrunner, right?" (Tiassa)

    Let us go straight to the numbers:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    As sexual harassment claims and general incompetence about expressing his platform erode former GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain's support, the primary campaign's nominal man to beat, Mitt Romney, finally gets some time at the head of the pack.

    Sort of.

    The RealClearPolitics rolling average for November 2-13 gives Romney a slight edge over the former pizza man—seven tenths of a percent—with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich running third.

    But one thing of note is a Public Policy Polling poll taken last week that shows the Tiffany divorceé actually leading the Republican field:

    Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling. He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%.

    Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4. Although a fair amount of skepticism remains about the recent allegations against Cain there is no doubt they are taking a toll on his image—his net favorability is down 25 points over the last month from +51 (66/15) to only +26 (57/31). What is perhaps a little more surprising is that Romney's favorability is at a 6 month low in our polling too with only 48% of voters seeing him favorably to 39% with a negative opinion.

    There's reason to think that if Cain continues to fade, Gingrich will continue to gain. Among Cain's supporters 73% have a favorable opinion of Gingrich to only 21% with a negative one. That compares to a 33/55 spread for Romney with Cain voters and a 32/53 one for Perry.

    While PPP is a Democratic-affiliated polling operation, the firm also reminds that Nate Silver suggested its surveys "exhibited a slight bias toward Republican candidates".

    Of course, the answer to the inevitable question deriving therefrom will come in the weeks ahead. Is PPP overstating Gingrich's support? Is it a quirk of polling variability? Or do GOP voters actually look well upon Newt Gingrich?

    It is hard to think that such a controversial political figure would play well for the Party in the general election, but these are interesting times for the GOP, and any number of explanations could reasonably apply.

    Such as things stand, Newt Gingrich may be emerging for his turn at the head of the Republican class. If so, these interesting times will only get more so.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    RealClearPolitics. "2012 Republican Presidential Nomination". (n.d.) RealClearPolitics.com. November 14, 2011. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep.../republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

    Public Policy Polling. "Gingrich takes lead nationally". November 14, 2011. PublicPolicyPolling.com. November 14, 2011. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_1114925.pdf
     
  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    This is great comedy! The Tea Bag population is desperately seeking a leader. Unfortunately for the Tea Bag crowd, they are not well informed and know very little about their politics, candidates or the world at large.
     
  21. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    Gingrich claims he was paid by Freddie Mac as a historian. Now that is laughable. Why the hell would Freddie Mac be interested in history? Freddie Mac would be interested in finance and economics but that ain't Gingrich. And Freddie and Fannie would be interested in manipulating congress, now that is an area in which Gingrich would have some knowledge and abilities.
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Notes on a Note

    History is a part of finance and economics. But the historian angle still doesn't work, because you don't pay $1.6m, or even $300k, for historical analysis.

    Or, if they really did, someone needs to be fired for wasting money.
     
  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    Yes finance and economics are a part of history - so is physics and chemistry for that matter. But just as a historian would be a poor physicist or chemist, and ill suited for any kind of professional work in the field; they would be equally poor and ill suite for any meaningful work in finance and economics.

    I want to see the look on the faces of the Tea Baggers when they see this cozy video of Newt and Nancy sitting together endorsing the issue of climate change.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvzT1S8p-ZM

    One of the problems the Tea Bag party faces is that their positions are just not consistent with their goals. And that is why the intelligent people in their party (e.g. Romney) are flip floppers. They have to push the Tea Bag insanity to get votes - do the crazy talk - and then try to remain credible.
     

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