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.
I don't like all these orchestrated attacks on Newt either, but you make a good point. As scummy and unsavory as those launching the attacks might be, the attacks wouldn't be sticking if they didn't have some substance behind them. I truly think most of those launching the attacks believe honestly that Newt is so flawed that he can't win.
The problem, of course, is that those same elites are wrong about Romney as well. Newt may have dug himself some pretty good holes, but he has at least shown an ability to climb his way out of them. Romney, though, is reverse-Teflon. Any attack on him sticks permanently because he can't fend them off effectively.
And Santorum....no guy whose permanent facial expression looks like he just smelled a bad fart is going to win. He is both dogmatic in substance, and rigid in demeanor. He'll wildly enthuse part of the base, but crash and burn in the general.
I don't think any of the three can win, and I am/was supporting Newt. But Rush was playing the audio of Gingrich bad-mouthing Reagan, and that will stick. So will some of this other stuff.
I think that normally, it would be impossible for a nominee to win without the support of at least part of the establishment. Reagan was the non-establishment nominee in 1980, and he did it. But there wasn't anything close to this level of vitriol, and frankly Reagan didn't have nearly as much dirt on him as Gingrich does. I don't think Gingrich has the charm of Reagan necessary to go "over the heads" of the chattering class, and make a successful appeal to all those swing votes we need to win. I hope I'm wrong.
I'm rapidly becoming convinced that the best hope right now is a deadlock on the first ballot, and an alternative stepping forth and getting the nomination as a compromise.
Eh, who am I kidding. That's not going to happen either.
Prepare for four more years, fellow Freepers.
I bet you don't either.
Are you working for Mitt? Sounds like it.