Posted on 01/27/2012 3:18:48 PM PST by Timber Rattler
We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.
We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.
I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.
We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan, and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan days. You can’t change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, “The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.” As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stanlin-esque re-writing of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.
But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 that didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.
I spoke up before the South Carolina primary to urge voters there to keep this primary going because I have great concern about the GOP establishment trying to anoint a candidate without the blessing of the grassroots and all the needed energy and resources we as commonsense constitutional conservatives could bring to the general election in order to defeat President Obama. Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this. Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up. And, trust me, during the general election, Governor Romney’s statements and record in the private sector will be relentlessly parsed over by the opposition in excruciating detail to frighten off swing voters. This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romney’s chief rival.
As I said in my speech in Iowa last September, the challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. It’s not enough to just change up the uniform. If we don’t change the team and the game plan, we won’t save our country. We truly need sudden and relentless reform in Washington to defend our republic, though it’s becoming clearer that the old guard wants anything but that. That is why we should all be concerned by the tactics employed by the establishment this week. We will not save our country by becoming like the left. And I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, they’re now using every available microscope and endoscope – along with rewriting history – in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own party’s primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?
- Sarah Palin
yes but usually with a middle finger
JOKING
My wife is a yankee and fits in very good down here, she said it was the best thing she ever did was to move down here , well after being with me.
She loves the south, the manners kids have no sir and yes mam, the slower way of life and how friendly people are.
She does understand how southerners get pissed off with those who move down here and the they bring their arrogant attitude, that “this is how we should do it because we did it like that back up north”
I’ll give you a great example
Yesterday we found an I phone.
We called the number up and said have you lose a phone
“yes” she said”OK I have it here”
“Well I’m filling out a police report”
“;er OK”
“Would you like to meet me?” I asked.
“Yes”
So we arrange to meet etc.
She drives up like a bat out of hell and nearly takes my front end off.
She gets out of the car and comes over.This is how it went
“Where did you get it from”
“my youngest found it on the table”
“Why is it turned off?’
“Er because it is not my business what is on your phone and besides I saved your battery”
I said “did you find the place alright” Meaning where we met as she said on the phone she had just moved south from liberal MA.
‘Yea” she replied .
She got in her car and just drive, no thank you no nothing.
First thing my wife said to me was’ Those are the kind of rude people I left and wanted to get away from.
Back on for just a minute —
Here’s the fatal flaw in Palin’s analysis:
Her premise is (and you also identified this) that if people just knew more of the dirt on Romney, they wouldn’t vote for them. And if people just knew more of the good stuff on Newt, and all the bad stuff was debuned, they would vote for Newt.
The reality is that a large percentage of the GOP base — as amply demonstrated on thread after thread on FR — simply does not give a damn about either Romney or Gingrich’s or anyone else’s record.
They are 100% focused on figuring out who, in their best estimation, can defeat Obama.
Fundamentally, this is about nothing more than a disagreement on the issue of who, Romney or Gingrich, is most likely to defeat Obama.
The GOP elites could criticize or praise Romney or Gingrich, or both of them at the same time, to high heaven and it wouldn’t make a hill-of-beans worth of difference to the grassroots.
The only way “negative stuff” impacts the grassroots at this point is if it makes the candidate look as though he would have a tougher time defeating Obama.
All further vetting is going to accomplish is giving the grassroots more information on which to decide which of these two men is more likely to defeat Obama.
All this stuff about Newt and Reagan — in my view, if it had a negative impact on Newt’s campaign, it won’t be because most conservatives conclude that Newt was “an opponent of Reagan,” the strawman Palin sets up. They’ll know that’s hogwash. But the fact that he made a speech against Ronald Reagan that sounded just like the speech Harry Reid made against George Bush and the Iraqi War could make people think “good grief, how will we get this man elected?”
There is thread after thread on FR about all the foibles of Newt that freepers “don’t care about.” That’s basically the zeitgeist in a nutshell, and it works **against** the impact of “negatives” on ALL candidates.
Again, the more that comes out about these guys, the more voters evaluate it SOLELY in terms of “how does this item affect this candidate’s electability?” End of discussion.
No one is going to get Gingrich elected by claiming he’s great and all the Bad Newt stuff is baloney. They have to convince people that he can defeat Obama more easily than Romney can defeat Obama.
So if Romney’s dirt is not viewed by the grassroots as affecting his electability, or vice versa, Newt’s is, whatever comes out from here on out will have no political meaning.
Be fair now, they had to move because Mexicans are doing what you said the Norther's are doing.
debuned = debunked
piffle
LOL GOOD POINT
After pondering this morning, I'm inclined to say you're pretty darn right.
I always think of Palin's philosophy of "if I die politically, I die." And it seemed to me maybe she was taking the same tact with Newt: if I can keep it going and he lives, great; if he dies, he dies, and we'll all know he had his chance.
However, now I am starting to wonder if maybe this isn't the staging for her to enter the race if need be.
As I've posted in several (unfortunately) long posts on this thread, I don't see her analysis as having any potential for practical expression, and I think her premise is wrong, though appealing.
What's left is the appealing part. She's stirring up the you-and-me-against-the-world pot and, just maybe, waiting to see what happens.
See Conde Nast Portfolio, October 2008. Article archive here:
http://www.portfolio.com/in-this-issue/in-this-issue-oct-2008
"Healthcare Nation", by Howell Raines (ex-editor, New York Times).
TinyURL version:
http://tinyurl.com/7w2ypls
The RiNO Establishment and the Democratic Party leadership, negotiating through their think-tank intermediaries, agreed to junk employer-paid healthcare to get the cost off employers' backs, and use the Democrats' Holy Grail of "single-payer" as a way to get rid of it. Never mind that it will make the Democrats invincible at the polls for the next 100 years, as every woman and health-impaired person out there will be powerfully bound to the Democrats by steel cables of government payola and access to doctors.
They decided to do this before the 2008 election, and everything that has transpired since then, especially on the GOP side, has been dumbshow for the chumps out in Chumpland.
Gov. Palin said that Newt was "an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support". While she doesn't want Mitt to run away with the nomination, she has reservations about Newt. She therefore cannot endorse Newt and cannot go to Florida this weekend and campaign with him. What she impliedly asked her supporters to do in SC was already stretching credulity: "Vote for Newt to keep the race alive, not because I endorse him." I can't see her doing that again. Gov. Palin may eventually endorse Newt, but she is reserving judgement for a few more weeks, I think, to see how he carries himself. In the interim, however, she doesn't want Romney to sew up the race, thereby preventing further scrutiny of his conservative bona fides.
Wow, yesterday I observed that a bunch of people support Obama.
I guess you are going to ask me, since I made that observation, whether I am among them?
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny!
If this is the type of vetting that Palin is talking about, why isn’t it happening in the primaries?
No one is stopping the other candidates or the conservative media or talk radio from bringing this up.
You actually read these threads? That is pure unadulterated cr@p. Some people on FR care about the Republic, and slowing the decent rate into Marxism is not what they are focused on. You should probably be less transparent with your disguised Romney endorsement.
-----
Really? I listened to a clip from yesterday's show on YouTube that was about an hour long, and while he didn't exactly bash Newt, he kept saying things like "I didn't remember this, but there's no denying the audio." He did also play the clip of Nancy praising Newt, but on balance what I heard was a guy who sounded like he was hearing terrible things for the first time, thought they were true, and was terribly disappointed.
Hank
And the Republican Party of Virginia, who disenfranchised VA voters.
No way. He's a high school graduate -- don't think he even has a college degree -- from a rural river town in Missouri. No way do guys like him get to play, he didn't go to an Ivy or an elite liberal-arts college; and neither did he do the Bob Dole "gentle, long rise" through the ranks as a Rotarian "country Republican".
Nah, he is strictly a one-man band. He's got cred with conservative Republicans dating to the 1994 blowout, but I'll wager my last dollar your average snotnose RiNO legacy-graduate of Yale or Dartmouth has no use for him.
I don’t disagree. But the fact is that, in general, he’s seen as a nice guy with a nice family.
Every word from these Newt detracters makes me want to vote for him even more.
Watching Dole realize that his opinion no longer moves the center of the Earth was pathetic.
You can bet your bottom dollar there are ‘back channel’ if not direct talks between SP and NG. It may be that they realize he’s controversial enough on his own and doesn’t need more controversy that an SP endorsement would bring. IF SP came out and endorsed him, it would take up several news cycles with the emphasis on her instead of him. They are both quite politically savvy, and I trust they know full well what they are doing.
That is as absurd, people don't know, on thread after thread in just the last two days freepers are expressing shock at learning details about the Bishop's religion.
Romney has never been vetted, not in 2008, not this time. Do think that people really know his beliefs on abortion, gun rights, the homosexual agenda, his family's avoidance of military service throughout their entire 170 years here, including through war and drafts and centuries?
It those darn cityslicker they are a rude lot.
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