Good one, Yaelle... some of the Gingrich people are not helping their candidate. I like Gingrich a lot more than I like some of his supporters. Of course, Gingrich has a lot of solid supporters too.
And I have no problem with the Wal-Mart comment. Gingrich “gets” the South. Wal-Mart is the hub of commercial life in many small Southern towns. My only problem with Wal-Mart is than Sam Walton's successors seem to have decided supporting Chinese manufacturing is more important than being good Americans... but it's pretty hard to argue with the economics of their decision.
67 posted on Saturday, March 10, 2012 6:47:19 PM by Reddy: “I totally disagree that this was a dig at Gingrich’s many marriages and affairs. Santorum was simply using an analogy about not sitting on the couch with another woman (I had a pastor that would never sit alone with a women nor be in a car alone with a woman because he wanted to make sure that there was never any question about fidelity) and the incident with Newt and Pelosi- sitting on the couch with Pelosi was improper because it led to all kinds of questioning of Newt’s loyalties. Period.”
104 posted on Saturday, March 10, 2012 7:29:56 PM by Yashcheritsiy: “What's funny is that for the past fifteen years, Newt has been as happily and faithfully married as either Santorum or romney. It's a dead issue, people. People can change. Newt did. Get over it. Stop being sanctimonious little holier-than-thous.”
Reddy is right, but Yashcheritsiy has a point about Newt and Callista Gingrich apparently being faithful to each other for the last decade and a half. Having the Roman Catholic Church approve a twice-divorced man for a church marriage is not an easy thing to do, and I have good reason to be confident that Gingrich's priests know more about the situation than we ever will.
However, let's try to understand what Santorum was saying.
No less a figure than Rev. Billy Graham had a well-known policy than neither he nor any member of his staff would be alone with any woman other than his wife. (I'm assuming that the details of the rule also allowed being alone with daughters, mothers, sisters, and other close family.) Graham's policy is well-known among evangelicals and it's a good policy, one I try to follow as much as possible in my personal and professional life, though it sometimes simply cannot be done in secular business.
Guys, I know there are people who think Gingrich's past doesn't matter. There are other people, among them the pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, who have written that Gingrich's past **DOES** matter but they're convinced he's repented.
The fact of that matter is that for those of us who take Scripture seriously, we believe that a man who cannot run his home cannot be trusted to run the church of God. If you don't like that, go take it up with God — he wrote I Timothy 3:5, not me.
I am very much aware that we're selecting a president, not a pastor or an elder, but the fact is that when someone has serious problems in their home life, it **IS** an indicator of whether the people who know the candidate best might just possibly know something the rest of us need to pay attention to before it's too late.
I've read the articles by Gingrich's daughters defending him. I've read enough about Gingrich's past to believe he may be truly repentant. Fair enough.
But to say Gingrich's family life is irrelevant simply isn't true. If the Republican Party nominates Gingrich, we're going to be treated to wall-to-wall family values advertising by Barack and Michelle Obama talking about how much they want to be a model for family life in an America where families are falling apart, and where Barack Obama himself personally experienced the pain of divorce and paternal abandonment. What Obama will throw at Gingrich will make Santorum’s “family values” comments look pretty mild by comparison.
If someone believes Newt Gingrich is the best candidate despite his marital background, certainly go ahead and vote for Gingrich. I supported Reagan despite his divorce, and there are often other issues which are more important than family life. I will almost certainly support Gingrich if he becomes the Republican nominee.
But don't act like it's only Santorum who will bring up family values. President Obama will do so, and he'll do it with a vengeance.
216 posted on Sunday, March 11, 2012 3:47:02 AM by Bizhvywt: “(Quoting Bailee): ‘Santorum doesn’t pay his tithes?’ According to his tax records, Santorum gave an average 2% of his income to charitable donations. I don’t know where it went, but it was definitely not a biblical 10%. But he is a ‘devout Catholic’ which in his case apparently means a sanctimonious blowhard.”
The main thing this shows is the difference in practical aspects of church life between conservative Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Tithing is not emphasized in the Roman Catholic Church the way it is in many evangelical circles.
Santorum is a Roman Catholic. There are differences between what his church believes and what I believe, and what his church chooses to emphasize even if there is no formal disagreement.
We simply cannot hold Catholics to evangelical standards, and vice versa.
“But don’t act like it’s only Santorum who will bring up family values. President Obama will do so, and he’ll do it with a vengeance.”
Let the “Infanticide President” make it a family values election. The guy said that he would abort his own grandchildren for Pete’s sake.
I think we are too pre-occupied with potential “baggage”. Obama has far more baggage than any of our candidates. What we need is someone with the cajones to call Obama on it. Newt has shown that he can do that better than the others.