Dear Bob,
Posted on 01/26/2012 10:12:01 AM PST by Windy City Conservative
The Romney campaign sends along a statement by Bob Dole pasted below. Relations between Dole — an establishment figure in the party — and Gingrich were well known to be tense during the 1990s. Here it is:
I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.
Gingrich served as Speaker from 1995 to 1999 and had trouble within his own party. Already in 1997 a number of House members wanted to throw him out as Speaker. But he hung on until after the 1998 elections when the writing was on the wall. His mounting ethics problems caused him to resign in early 1999. I know whereof I speak as I helped establish a line of credit of $150,000 to help Newt pay off the fine for his ethics violations. In the end, he paid the fine with money from other sources.
Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics helped to topple Gingrich in 1998.
In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty ice-bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it.
In my opinion if we want to avoid an Obama landslide in November, Republicans should nominate Governor Romney as our standard bearer. He has the requisite experience in the public and private sectors. He would be a president we could have confidence in.
This match has been postponed long enough, it’s time to blow up the team, and rebuild from the ashes.
Dear Bob,
Reagan's Young Lieutenant - By Jeffrey Lord on 1.24.12 @ 6:09AM
To shorten the tale, once the executive committee arrived in Dallas in August for the week ahead of the actual convention and the traditional period in which the Platform Committee delegates assemble to do their task -- Gingrich's fears were realized in spades. All hell broke loose as Senator Dole -- carrying the prestige of the chairmanship of the Senate's tax writing committee -- insisted on an open-ended plank on taxes that would accept a tax increase as a "last resort."
Newt struck back. Hard. In private session -- and public. Working with his fellow Young Turks Rep. Jack Kemp and Tom Loeffler from Texas, Newt Gingrich raised holy hell. What Dole was proposing was a violation of the Reagan 1980 platform, a gross violation of Reaganomics, and just plain dumb. With Democratic nominee Walter Mondale already out there pledging to raise taxes, this was effectively caving in to Mondale. Bob Dole, Newt snapped at one point, was nothing other than the "tax collector for the welfare state."
Dole was furious with the young Newt -- and, it might be noted, recently made a point of endorsing Mitt Romney. Hmmmmm.
And they’re good ideas as far as I can see.
Hey, Rick, drop out and save this country.
Tagline change via Jonah Goldberg.
“If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices.”
Why?
PB, by October, nominee Mitt Romney would be polling around 25-30% against Obama. If you sprain your principles and vote for him, and the rest of us do likewise, he would lose by about 10 points instead of 20+.
But lose he surely would.
So don’t worry about it. You won’t have to vote for Mitt Romney. I don’t plan on doing it either.
“Romney-Alinksy ties”
Could you please list them?
That’s not really true. The question is, which house members who served under Gingrich are supporting him now, and which have not?
I know of a few who do not:
- Rick Santorum (well, obviously)
- Dick Armey
- Tom DeLay
- Tom Coburn
- Peter King
- Steven LaTourette
- Joe Scarborough (I know, he doesn’t count)
I’m sure there are some that are supporting him as well. My point isn’t to compare the lists, just that it isn’t true that his colleagues are mostly dead. Gingrich isn’t THAT old.
I don't full-on hate it --- YET!
There are still primaries to go, but I'll tell you this:
If these SOB Republican Party "elites" and their filthy Romney-loving dogs in the MSM manage to bring down Newt's run for the presidency, then I'm done with them.
I'll go rogue for good!
All these traitors can PISS OFF: Dole, McCain, Rubio, Crist, Haley, Coulter, Beck, FOX News, National Review, and the HUNDREDS of other limp-wristed quislings that are destroying the conservative movement!
Sorry about the rant. I'm so angry right now I'm nearly shaking!
“Bob Dole is the poster boy on why we don’t want Romney.”
AMEN and AMEN!!!! Oh gosh, I can’t even begin to explain why Bob Dole would ever say a word ever again! Shut and sit down.
Of COURSE the reaction from the grassroots conservatives will be PFFFFFT! to Dole, who was a pretty bad campaigner in 1996, BUT ...
I would beg readers to look deeply at what is really being said, before you shoot the messengers. Gingrich is NOT a conservative savior, and in fact, if you look in detail at his stewardship in 1994-1998, he fought the conservatives in his caucus on spending and other matters. This is why conservatives like Coburn and other oppose Newt gingrich - he betrayed them. He lobbied not just for Medicare Part D, but for money for embyonic stem cell research, supported healthcare mandates including Romneycare mandates
Gingrich was a Rockefellar Republican:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJQsLFhuyOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQQaSY46rGk&feature=related
Gingrich undercut conservatives as Speaker:
The final straw for many was the 1998 budget. When Kasich presented a budget that harkened back to the Contract with America days and included real budget cuts, Gingrich lambasted the budget-cutters in a closed-door meeting. Gingrich’s pushback against fiscal conservatives was a prelude to Congress, a few weeks before the midterm elections of 1998, passing a budget that hiked non-defense discretionary spending by over 5% that year – twice the 1997 budget deal’s increase – and funded a record amount of pork-barrel projects. It was in every way a rout of the very ideals that won the GOP a majority in Congress in the first place. When presented with an option by then-Rep. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and a number of other conservatives in the House to offset some of these hikes with spending cuts in other parts of the budget, Gingrich nixed the idea outright.
Show me where Dole was ever so panicked at the thought of a Marxist president. Come to think of it, show me where Bob Dull has ever shown this strong an opinion of ANYTHING?
Losers of a feather, flock together. Can’t wait to see the photo ops of Romney holding hands with Dole on one side and McCain on the other. That’s going to be compelling stuff for the grass roots of the GOP who suffered through the debacles of 1996 and 2008.
JC Watts. Bill McCollum.
[I thought Dole was dead!]
No, he’s just stiff! Badda Bing!
This is from the Dukakis wing of the republican party.
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