Posted on 11/13/2011 6:54:05 PM PST by fightinJAG
[snip]Gingrich is perhaps best-known for his foibles, including his spectacular fall from power in the late 1990s. ... Gingrich also holds some views that do not fit the conservative mold. He has partnered with Hillary Clinton to advocate health-care IT legislation, with Al Sharpton and Arne Duncan to promote President Barack Obama's education reforms, and with Nancy Pelosi in an ad stressing the importance of taking action on climate change.
Gingrich angered Republicans by criticizing Paul Ryan's plan to reform Medicare, prompting the American Conservative to accuse him of never really having been a conservative in the first place. [snip]
A self-described "ideas man," Gingrich is the author of 23 books....His earlier books are filled with rapid-fire streams of ideas for bettering society, often without details about how to implement them.
"Gingrich's vagueness was always a problem," wrote Ferguson. "But the books show something more: a near-total lack of interest in the political implementation of his grand ideas—a lack of interest, finally, in politics at its most mundane and consequential level."[snip]
Gingrich is also known for having had a six-year affair with his now-wife, then-House staffer Callista Bisek, while he was married to his second wife, Marianne Ginther. Esquire has an interesting profile of Gingrich based on interviews with his second wife. Ginther describes how Gingrich told her about the affair right after giving speeches about family values, and says that he initially asked her if she could just tolerate the affair.
Gingrich also runs the Center for Health Transformation, a for-profit group whose members are health insurers and drug companies. According to the Wall Street Journal, the companies pay big membership fees, and "in return, they get access to Mr. Gingrich, interaction with other group members, and marketing and research support."
(Excerpt) Read more at alaska-native-news.com ...
No, we’re not running out of time. Not one vote has been cast yet. Calm down, man!
As for Cain “ruling himself out.” Sorry. No matter what you or I or anyone else thinks, that song can be sung from morning to night, but the polls and the fundraising just doesn’t back it up at this point.
Sure, it may develop that way, but it hasn’t yet. So you are basing your argument on your mere opinion of Cain, not anything about the reality of the race at this time.
That’s fine, but just recognize it for what it is. Your opinion of Cain, which is low, which is perfectly legitimate. But it’s not a reason to rush into Newt’s arms.
There’s no emergency! Objectively (emphasis: OBJECTIVELY) Cain and Newt are both viable at the moment. As I see it, we need to keep them both strong (in reserve against Romney), while at the same time strongly and FACTUALLY (not just with conclusory statements) hashing out which of the two seems to be the most conservative candidate that can get elected.
Mistress stuff didn’t hurt McCain much and Newt’s is old news
he’s likely too old to screw around now
“Interesting that which ever Republican candidate rises to the top or close to it the smear machines go into high gear. During the off-season the target of the smear machine was Sarah Palin.”
Between the presstitutes, the dimcraps, the candidates themselves (stepping on their own cranks), and to a lesser extent, the circular firing squad, there are overt attempts to marginalize every candidate (except Romney, but his time is coming). In other words, your comments are correct.
Every candidate is wounded. The trend is heading toward (a) the lesser of the “evils”, and (b) who can beat the Commie in the WH. Our opportunity of hope for a true conservative prez is slipping away.
There’s a good chance that the story will have already been written way before we get to March. Particularly if Romney takes Iowa.
Again - it think there are fair odds that this is all going to boil down to Romney vs. Newt. I don’t need to do a lot of historical investigations or soul searching to decide which of those two I would pick.
Firmly planted in the Not Romney camp here.
The moral lapses are one thing. But it shows how deeply typical he was of Washington political culture, and this in his formative years and when he was publicly supporting a family values agenda.
Did you ever work in a high level corporate position? That is the real world where dog eats dog competition is the rule. A good executive has to weigh every option, every bit of information available before making a decision. Cain has lived his entire career using that methodical approach, and explains why he met with success in every job.
Any person who is a “know it all” kind of person is the worst possible leader. In case you have not noticed, geo-politics is a complex, and any one who has glib answers in 30 second sound bites, I would run from as fast as I can.
I disagree... Fragmentation will lead to Romney. The “Not Romney’s” are going to have to settle on one candidate or Romney’s strategy is going to be successful. This coalescing may need to take place by the end of December it it’s going to be effective.
I think there’s enough early indicators to see the shade crossing Cains path. The decline may not happen as rapidly as other implosions etc. But my guess is, it will happen just the same.
“But I hope people don’t fall too much in love with his debate persona because he could never act that way as President. It would just be unpresidential.”
In the interest of “...honest discussion of points that need to be talked over thoroughly...,” could the above comment not be applied to all of the most ambitious plans of all of the candidates?
Nancy Reagan was the second wife. McCain’s wife was the second wife. Things happen in life.
Newt is now a practicing Catholic.
No.
My comment did not relate to the candidates’ plans, but to their manners, in particular, Newt’s manners.
For example, it’s all well and good for him to get down in the weeds with Mario Bartiromo now, as a candidate. In fact, it’s great, we applaude it. But could any president act that same way without being portrayed, and probably rightly so, as petty and petulant and unpresidential?
I doubt it.
So my point is that not everything that is great about Newt’s debate performances could be continued if he became President. The wonky part, yes! The red meat to conservatives part, not so much.
I will, what was the result? What product came out of their collaboration? And what is wrong with trying to find common ground, if possible to improve education? I have read that Sharpton is a big fan of charter schools and I think vouchers. Do you have something against charter schools and vouchers? Are not both favored by conservatives? If Newt could get the Obama Administration to support charters schools and vouchers would that not be a good thing?
All you are doing is smear campaign against Newt. Yeah go ahead and bold Newt and Al Sharpton Newt and Al Sharpton Newt and Al Sharpton Yall Cain supporter are low class. I used to like and defend Cain, no more. Yall have completely turned me off on Cain.
Hey you want to vote for the pizza salesman with ZERO RECORD ON ANYTHING go right ahead. You will get what you deserve.
You’re not wrong, but I still thing the end of the December is way too early to be Doomsday.
As for Cain, all you or I or anyone can do at this point is speculate. And there’s no point in that, in terms of what you are trying to do, which is use YOUR speculation (as opposed to some other equally plausible speculation) as a grounds for arguing that conservatives must coalesce around Newt.
This is going to happen, but not by any knowable timeframe. It is going to happen when the polls show that fewer and fewer respondents are still “not sure” who they want to vote for in the primaries. Right now that number is high enough to make any findings on who is in the top spot shakey.
I don’t think this is going to, or needs to, happen by the end of December.
As I said, it seems to me the smart thing to do is to try to keep both guys viable and in reserve against Romney. Look, two weeks ago you could have just as well been using the same logic to argue that everybody had to coalesce around Cain, he was rising in the polls and no one else (Perry or Gingrich) had been able to get a step on him. An time was a-wasting, so it needs to be all in for Cain, warts and all.
Look how things have changed. And things can change again. Newt could be in the toilet next week, then what?
P.S. I meant to add that I agree with if your point was that a lot of the most ambitious plans the candidates put out there are more or less unlikely to be implemented (for various reasons) even if they make it to the White House.
But, as I explained in my previous post, my comment went specifically to how “bust a lip” Gingrich has been in the debates. Yes, it’s thrilling to finally see some of these Libs get whacked back for a change, but that’s just not going to continue to happen even in a Gingrich administration. Candidates can do stuff like that. Presidents cannot.
Por favor, what is a “Character assignation attack”?
Attacking someone by assigning character to them?
Do you have in mind any particular type of character you wish to assign?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I’m more interested in what Newt has to say on these things. Not what any freeper has to say, though I will respectfully listen...
Yep and why I’m on the Cain train.
The old retred pasty fat White Guy cannot defeat a younger Obama no matter how much smarter Newt is compared to Obama.
Cain is our best chance of getting a Conservative back in the White House over Obama. This is why he is attacked because he is the front runner. Don’t believe for one second it’s Romney.
I very much resent the constant smear campaign the pizza salemans' supporters are using against EVERY OTHER candidate but it really matters very little since events are going to dictate our future not politics.
Beware of fake ‘conservative’ ‘media’ at work to fool and manipulate people for their own anything-to-make-a-profit agenda!
John Ziegler (author of ‘Media Malpractice’) confirms my suspicion on the similarity of Cain’s almost meteoric rise to that of obama in 2008.
The media on both sides are operating either on their self-interests of profiting or as propaganda machines for their ‘ideology’. The resulting hovoc and miseries is not their concern.
Please check this out. John Ziegler has nailed it.
http://johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=206
Many are so easily maipulated emotionally by the media, (FOX or otherwise), that it is looking gloomier and gloomier!
Just see how they are harping on the Cain sex scandals day and night but how nothing can derail Cain’s momentum. Bring back memories? - obama can do no wrong in 2008. Cain is charismatic, obama is messionic; Cain’s 999 tax plan vs o’s hope and change.....
I have nothing negative to say about Cain and am not passing any judgement on Cain. It just strikes me that this almost meteoric rise on Cain’s part is highly ‘suspect’.
If this recent attack on Cain is bad but makes him more popular, wait till you see the reverse - the nominee Cain under leftists attacks from which he will never recover, and hand over the victory to the usurper one more time.
I disagree again. If the Not Romney’s are going to compete they are going to have to have money and face time. It determines who gets center stage in the debates, who get’s the most questions in the debates, who gets face time on the news programs, etc... Poll numbers drive all of that. Look at Cains sudden fundraising prowess. The Not Romney candidate will need to have some coalescing soon in order to be able to fund the ground games necessary and to have the narrative/conventional wisdom developed that they are indeed a serious challenger to Romney.
I think my views on Cain are more reality than opinion. It’s just a matter of how long it’s going to be before people accept reality.
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