Posted on 12/13/2011 9:16:47 AM PST by SmithL
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes he has invented a bold new way of running a political campaign. "I told somebody at one point, 'This is like watching (Sam) Walton or (Ray) Kroc develop Walmart and McDonald's,' " Gingrich told the authors of "Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back." The secret ingredient: Newt.
Before him, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann also ran successful insurgent campaigns - until their bubbles burst. But Gingrich added his own innovation to the model: He soared in the polls months after most of his campaign staff quit because the former speaker and his wife, Callista, insisted on taking a two-week cruise off Greece and Turkey when serious candidates were slogging through Iowa and New Hampshire.
It's true that in the GOP debates, Gingrich has been at the top of his game. On Saturday in Iowa, there was his quick rejoinder after Mitt Romney referred to Gingrich as a career politician. "The only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994," the Newter shot back.
At another debate, when Texas Rep. Ron Paul said he opposed the Patriot Act and scolded that existing law already allowed prosecutors to convict and punish Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Gingrich countered, "Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That's the whole point."
And: "I don't want a law that says after we lose a major American city, we're sure going to come and find you. I want a law that says, you try to take out an American city, we're going to stop you."
It's such blunt talk that sets Gingrich apart from the painstakingly prepped Romney.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Gingrich said it best in the last debate, Romney is “timid”
Newt has the audacity of wanting to bring this country back to the founders original intent. I’ve said before, that to do this is going to hurt and hurt bad, but.....we have no choice today. If we want our country back, we need to take it back with such force that those that want to destroy us will think twice before trying it again. I totally believe that this administration that we have today, actually wants to destroy our way of life and make us more like Europe or the Middle East. This is not what we want and Newt knows it. My hope is that he sticks to what is important to us and go after it with all he’s got.
This is funny.
Seems like forever, people have ignored Newt.
Now folks are saying, ‘where have you been hiding all theses years, Newt?’ LOL
The Left and the Republican establishment hate and fear Newt. The Republicans hate him because he makes them do things. The Left hate him because he gets things done!
Gingrich can talk bluntly, and whats more he knows what we want to hear.
The problem is once he is elected will he fight to give us what we want or will he fold up like a cheap suit.
Right now I have my foot in the Newt camp, but I cannot say I trust him.
I have more trust in Bachman, but I do not think she has the experience or what it takes upstairs to be President.
It takes more than good intentions to run a country.
Newt was forced into political exile because he was - well Newt.
His decade of research, writing, consulting and helping clients deal with the bowels of Washington certainly had an affect on him.
IMHO - Newt had become angry and fearful as he witnessed the destruction of his country - and how his grandchildren would inherit a socialist hell. The powerlessness most of us feel is not in Newt’s character - and he decided the cure was to fight back and charge into the arena.
That took guts, courage & self-confidence because he had to know he would be taking on the backstabbers in Congress, the media and the GOP elites.
Duty is not a dirty word.
Bachmann has never had any legislation passed, the VFW went after her for proposing cuts to disabled veterans in order to trim the Defense Dept budget and she has the 11th worst attendence record in congress. Her constituents pay her to show up and vote...imagine what would happen to you or to me if we were NO shows on the taxpayer’s dole. Just saying...
“Newt has the audacity of wanting to bring this country back to the founders original intent. I’ve said before, that to do this is going to hurt and hurt bad, but.....we have no choice today. If we want our country back, we need to take it back with such force that those that want to destroy us will think twice before trying it again. I totally believe that this administration that we have today, actually wants to destroy our way of life and make us more like Europe or the Middle East. This is not what we want and Newt knows it. My hope is that he sticks to what is important to us and go after it with all he’s got.”
Roger That! Well said.
I wish there was a non-diceroll candidate out there, but there just isn't. The more pure conservatives don't have a record of actually accomplishing anything other than energizing the base (Santorum, Bachmann), and the others either lack a legitimate roadmap to beat Obama (Perry), or are even more risky than Newt (Huntsman, Romney, Paul).
Defended him on this forum for years against ignorant tirades and false charges. That was then and this is now.
Fact! Newt hasn't gotten more conservative since he was forced out of his Speakership. In the last decade Newt has become less conservative and by his own admission, the Era of Reagan is over.
Newt would be an okay last man standing choice against Obama, but he can't win. Newt 2012 is McCain 2008 redux. Conservatives should be able to do better then a washed up has-been.
Caveat Emptor
Newt says the things we like to hear.
His personality, self assurance and attractive narative often overshadow the reality of his past statements, positions and actions.
It’s always wise to look below the surface.
Along with, "Why are you such a commie, Newt?"
He would definitely do some things that would piss us off. But I think he would be a superb manager of the country, that he’d get foreign policy back in line, and that he may be the only one who grasps the economic nuances well enough to craft a recovery. I could go for Newt. He’d do ok.
“Newt would be an okay last man standing choice against Obama, but he can’t win.”
The polls say otherwise.
If Newt really wants to close the deal he would get Bachman as V.P.
Right, polls 10-1/2 months out from an election are definitive and as we all know, 100% correct.
LOL
Me, too. The Newt of the debates is great. Unfortunately, the Newt of the entire past is not, meaning a vote for him in the primaries is a gamble. However, Mittens being the alternative, my vote’s temporarily for Newt. Not much of a recommendation, but still a recommendation.
Sounds like Newt has done what any serious candidate who loves liberty more than power should do--read the real writings and speeches of the Founders, observe the results of their ideas about liberty as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, implemented the structuring of a form of strictly limited self-government which produce the greatest amount of liberty, opportunity, prosperity, and plenty in the history of the world.
That is what Ronald Reagan had done prior to becoming President, else he could never have expressed those ideas so eloquently and boldly.
To set out qualifications for a president at this critical juncture in America's history, we might consult an excerpted portion of the 1801 Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson for guidance on the seriousness of the undertaking:
(Excerpt) "Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
"About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
Now, the question is: which 2012 candidate possesses the intellectual qualifications to lead us to "retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety"
Who has devoted the time to reading and understanding how America became great in the first place?
Who can articulate America's founding ideas in a way that will enlighten and excite youth as to the superiority of liberty over entitlement?
Who is best able to refute the lies of socialism with the "self-evident" truth of the Founders' ideas of Creator-endowed individual liberty, freedom of individual enterprise, and self-government through a written Constitution which binds those in power in government?
“Now folks are saying, ‘where have you been hiding all theses years, Newt?’ LOL”
For me, because of his past, it was hard to give him a serious look. However, as each debate proceeded, and he looked like the only “adult” on stage, I started looking closer. I’m a moral conservative, and Newt really isn’t. However, I realize I’m not going to get a viable “moral conservative” this election. So, my next position is national security. When I look at all the GOP candidates, even those now out, I soberly reflected..”Who do I trust the most with the security of the nation?” I had to conclude is was Newt. That is why I am voting for him in the primary. I’m not a Newt supporter, per se, I just think he is the only viable choice.
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