Thanks for posting that. It was interesting.
The key to understanding Newt is to understand Narcissism. Not the common, loosely used term that is tossed around so lightly, but the clinical definition/disorder of Narcissism. Newt fits it to a T.
It’s sad if this is the best the GOP can do. Oh well.
Welcome. I would generally agree about the narcissism but then again that is a feature of politicians in general. The question for me is whether Newt has truly grown or is simply playing to his desire to be front and center. If he can show convincingly that he has learned from his mistakes then the power to him. I’m never one to expect perfection what I’m more interested in is whether I see a person who has overcome their flawed human nature and if they are someone I can trust that their arrow is in the right direction.
That is the one reason I can not support Romney even though there is no evidence of infidelity etc. When the rubber meets the road can I count on him to hold firm or cave to ‘bipartisanship’ etc. The last thing we need is a President who cares more about accomplishing ‘something’ rather than accomplishing ‘the right thing’. I worry about Newt on this count to some degree also but I do know at least with him that he will not back down easily but he does have the tendency to be his own worst enemy. Newt reminds me of Nixon and that is something I just can’t shake just as Romney reminds me of Gerald Ford/HW Bush.
I’d prefer Cain, Bachman, Paul and Santorum over him but what I expect will happen if he maintains momentum into the first primaries then there is a good chance he will knock Romney out of the race. If Romney doesn’t win NH you can stick a fork in him. Over the next few weeks we can expect Romney to start digging into his war chest heavily in an attempt at a late surge. He’s already started doing it now. I don’t believe the late surge is going to happen and history tends to agree with that because he tried the same thing in 2008 and McCain came back from single digits to win NH but that is clearly his strategy.
If Newt knocks out Romney which if Romney doesn’t win at least something respectable in the first round of primaries that would be very likely then suddenly Newt becomes the new Romney and there are a lot of primaries left and I fully expect conservatives will shift towards either Bachmann or Perry provided Cain drops out which it looks to be the case. Now this assumes that Perry, Bachman hang on which I believe they will. I’m more doubtful of Santorum. I did see one sign for him in NC.
This race isn’t over by far and the fluid dynamic is following an unconventional path but even so the path is very similar to 2008. I just hope when the ball stops its on a better candidate than Newt or Romney. Now there is always the wild card in the race which is Ron Paul. His primary fault being dismissive of the Iranian threat, etc which I believe is why his rocket ship has continued to fail to launch because his fiscal policy ideas are the best by far.
If only we could pair Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann. ;-)