Spot on. Face it, 98% of us on FR are going to be there in November voting for the Republican ticket, regardless of who it is - though few will admit it. And I expect Beck, Drudge, Rush, Medved, and any other pundit, that right now support another candidate besides Newt will be doing the same. This is the Primary, and all the candidate should pass our own personal set of standards. To fall blindly for the person who seems to have caught fire just because they have caught fire is no way to pick a candidate.
And I would bet that nearly every Freeper here who has now a man crush on Newt, could not stand the guy back in the spring of 2011 when he jumped in and his popularity here was next to nil.
Not me. I was stunned and crestfallen back then at the unfair treatment he got when he criticized one small aspect of the Ryan plan. I had no idea so many Republicans could be such whiny, overly sensitive babies with their own personal brand of "political correctness" when it comes to words that shall not be used. I am a conservative and therefore firmly opposed to people who are offended by words and people who don't understand the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me."
Now I am 100% sure the slime Newt got for no reason in the conservative media was specifically trumped up by the same elites bashing him now and was there way to cut his legs off right out of the gate. I'll never forget the tone in Bill Bennett's voice when he said "he's done, he can't come back from this" and me thinking that I just couldn't believe how hard everyone was coming down on him. I suspect a lot of you people here were swayed by the conservative media as well. I now deeply resent them trying to control our minds like that every bit as much for their own ends as the liberal media does on a daily basis.
From then on I could not understand why Newt stayed so far down in the polls. I basically wrote him off as never coming back and took a long look at the other candidates. I would still often say I thought Newt was the best one and I didn't understand why he wasn't more popular. Cain was the first one that I got excited about. Then he started flubbing foreign policy questions badly and Newt suddenly started hitting home runs and getting the loudest cheers of anyone. The main problem before seemed to be Newt was stuck off to the side and barely got any questions.
My dream for a while has been to get one of these genuinely conservative talk show hosts to run for an office like President, because I believe someone with COMMUNICATION SKILLS could turn this country back from the hard leftward shift that the media and schools have driven the last couple generations to. I knew Newt from his appearances on FOX News for the last 8 years or so and always thought he was one of their best guests, someone who I would always drop what I was doing and pay complete attention to. Trust me, I never had any doubts about whether he was conservative. No one in their right mind who simply listened to what the man said on a regular basis could.
I would like to understand the vitriol being spewed toward this man from people who seem to believe in most of the things he's stood for all his career. On the other hand I see a series of endorsements or at least praise from people like Dick Cheney, Michael Reagan, Fred Thompson, etc. and I know I don't have anything to worry about with Newt.