Posted on 11/15/2011 10:33:39 AM PST by presidio9
Yes, Newt Gingrich has spiked in the polls. No, he’s not going to be the nominee. I’ve been trying to duck this one because it feels like laying out the obvious, but, briefly, three reasons:
1. The baggage he’s always had — the marital difficulties, the ethics troubles, a whole bunch of deviations from conservative orthodoxy over the years (such as that ad he shot with Nancy Pelosi: “Our country must take action to address climate change”) — just isn’t going to go away. Republican voters don’t have those things in mind at the moment, but no candidate is more vulnerable to attack ads than the former Speaker.
2. Message discipline, lack thereof. It’s impossible to imagine Newt not saying something that hurts him if there’s a microphone in front of his face for a three-week stretch, which is what wouldgoing to happen if the press decides he actually has a chance at winning this thing. We have a couple decades of evidence, including earlier this year, showing that he’s just not able to do it. For whatever it’s worth, I’d add that as I read the polling over the years, Newt’s basic act is unlikely to wear well with voters after extended exposure. People just don’t like the guy.
3. Both of those might be overcome, but this one won’t: it’s highly unlikely that anyone who worked with Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker would want him anywhere near the White House. As detailed in many places, but perhaps most memorably by David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf in their
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That being said, the longer the msm refers to vague charges of "the marital difficulties, the ethics troubles," the more the whole thing works in Newt's favor. He has been a very public figure for almost 40 years, and the left flat-out hates him, so I'm assuming there is nothing new here. At some point in the very near future he is going to have to address exactly what happened with his first wife, and it will go something like this:
Newt Gingrich was 18 when he married 26 year-old Jackie Battley, his HS geometry teacher. Nine years and two kids later, they had grown apart and Battley, not Gingrich suggested divorce. The went over the papers while she was in the hospital having a benign tumor removed. Not quite as juicy as the hate Gingrich crowd would have you believe, but that's what happened. This does not excuse Gingrich's shameful lack of respect for the sacrament of marriage, but he seems to have undergone a religious epiphany with the help of his current wife, Callista. As a Christian, I am willing to take him at his word on this one. I'm looking for the candidate not named Romney who is best qualified to fix the economy, restore America's place in the word, solve the dysfunction in Congress, and expose Obama in a debate. If character was my only factor, I'd be out campaigning for Tim Tebow.
Then they will move on to the "ethics violations," and someone will probably step in for him, before he even gets a chance to defend himself:
While Newt was speaker, democrats filed 84 ethics sanctions against him. Eighty three were dropped -sound familiar Palinites? The one that stuck had to do with a class he taught. The committee could not agree that a violation had occurred, but the settlement agreement required that he reimburse the committee for the cost of the investigation, $300k. Two years later, the IRS cleared him, but the damage had been done.
Of course there are plenty of people on the left and in the media who will rightly despise the media. The reaction from the general electorate will be a collective "THAT's IT???" It suprises me how many people on this website are not aware of the actual stories? This type of group psychology in popular folklore is how Paul Bunyan ended up a giant with a blue ox.
At this point, hopefully, most people will feel a bit embarassed, shake their heads and take a second look at the man:
There have been two conservative revolutions in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan led one of them and Newt Gingrich inspired the other.
There have been four budgets balanced in my lifetime and Newt Gingrich balanced them all.
There have been two historic upset elections in my lifetime for the House of Representatives, Barak Obama caused one of them and Newt Gingrich crafted the other.
Two entitlements, Social Security and welfare have been reformed in my lifetime, the former occurred under Ronald Reagan and the latter was done by Newt Gingrich.
The government has been shut down twice to reduce spending and Gingrich did it both times.
dunham says hawaii is in asia!!!..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LBGRiB4PEjk#!
Seems very unlikely. He is going up because he hasnt said anything stupid lately, but when he does he does it BIG!
Who’s this Bernstein person?
Never heard of him.
Sounds pretty bitter about Newt.
Wonder why?
Technically, it is part of the pacific plate and not any contintent.
No RINOs, no Newt, no thanks.
We are now. Thanks!
seems to me the WaComPost is a bit concerned about Gingrich and his candidacy- probably because this guy would destroy obama in the debates....
and while he’s had some slip ups in the past Gingrich can also offer the credentials of getting America back on the course of fiscal responsibility despite having an uber liberal in the WH...
Somebody please save this and salt it for the author’s future consumption.
Could be a paid hit piece.
The converse of the argument is that Gingrich, love him or hate him, is a known quantity. It’s not like there is some sordid skeleton lurking in his past that we don’t already know about. It’s hard for the media to trash someone who’s already run the gauntlet.
Screw the press. Newt is the best candidate we have and if we don’t start pulling together to tell the MSM that just like in 2010, they won’t be picking our candidates anymore, we’ve lost anyway.
Gingrich/West. We have no better, more experienced and more appealing team. Newt’s got problems. Big deal. Show me the blue dress or STFU.
The current President of the United States did Cocaine.
but none of the Republican candidates can be President because of their inherent character flaws.
there is nothing wrong with our candidates. There is something terribly wrong with the system of knowledge that like a Penn State football coach condones great evil while pretending that the moral universe is intact.
Newt gets how the systemic bias of our intellectual life guarantees the demise of American life. That is what must be overthrown.
This article is like so much useless political chatter— worse than useless.
Newt converted to Catholicism a few years back. He has been different ever since. If Newt has gone before GOD for forgiveness and received it who are we to judge what has already been forgiven. That is pretty much all Newt has to say.
The article also quoted Andrew Sullivan explaining why (s)he does not feel Newt is a conservative.
The Washington Post is dead set against Newt? Well that seals it for me. Newt’s my man.
“No RINOs, no Newt, no thanks.”
OBAMA! Four more years!
You think a Moromon or the pizza guy is going to beat him in a general election, you’re nuts. Newt might be far from perfect, but at least he wasn’t a Democrat, like some other shitty Republican Presidents we’ve had in the White House.
Just another liberal pundit who can't think of anything positive to say about our president. The solution is to recycle tired material about Republican candidates. The left doesn't want Romney because he is the most liberal (John Huntsman is). They want Romeny because they know he will have the hardest time making this election about Obamacare.
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