Posted on 08/19/2007 11:29:15 PM PDT by neverdem
Newt Gingrich is a possible late entrant into the 2008 presidential race. Recently, at a National Press Club appearance, the former Speaker spoke critically about the process that ultimately chooses a candidate.
"We've invented a system where we've replaced big city machine bosses with consultant bosses. Read the newspaper coverage: ‘who's your pollster? What advertising firm did you hire? Who did you hire in Iowa? Who did you hire in South Carolina?' This is the new boss system. The job of the candidate is to raise the money to hire the consultants to do the focus groups to figure out the 30 second answers to be memorized by the candidates. This is stunningly dangerous."
"Then you combine the stultifying, exhausting, shrinking process with the way these auditions have occurred. These aren't debates! These are a cross between 'The Batchelor,' 'American Idol' and who's smarter than a fifth-grader."
"Candidates are held to a rigidity standard, while their answers are held to a 30 second sound bite standard that is frankly absurd. ‘What's your answer on Iraq in 30 seconds? What's your answer on health care in 30 seconds.'"
"I believe that every candidate should be challenged to commit that if they are their party's nominee, that they would agree to meet once a week with their main opponent and the two of them would have a dialogue. There are 2 core premises: The first is that it has to be open ended; you should give the answer the length your answer should be; the second is, it should be focused on a series of large questions around which people would be expected to bring solutions. I think two things would happen. First, an amazing percentage of the American people would watch and in the age of the Internet, all the dialogue would be cached and people could go back to it, people would analyze it and take it apart and I think the candidates would grow and change. The American people would have a remarkable sense after nine, ninety minute conversations in their living rooms about the two personalities and which person they thought had the right ideas, the right character and the right capacity to be a leader."
"The Founding Fathers did not invent this process for the enrichment of consultants or for the cynical maneuvering of those who seek power. They invented this process to enable the American people to determine who they would lend power to. And the process should start with; what is the kind of campaign the American people need in order to have the kind of country they deserve?"
Or, simply put: Too much baggage.
He's been in the private sector long enough to know how to actually get things done. He's been in the D.C. bubble long enough to know how to make things happen.
I can only give praise to someone who is jazzed about being a real part of the solution.
P.S. And I LOVE his interest and knowledge of history - so we don't repeat our mistakes ;-)
prisoner6
"...with his impeccable conservative credentials"
Leaves wife on deathbed to marry the other woman--check
Has lesbian daughter--check
Helps broker tax-funded bailout of Mexican elites when peso collapsed--check
Can't communicate his great ideas--check
Having gotten that off my chest, I'd like to live in Newt's world.
Newt is smart, but not as smart as he thinks, and that is dangerous. He jumps to conclusions that are not logically warranted. He needs some humility, and not just as a hat to wear.
Because Newt's a freak.
He's not as much a freak as McCain, and he's certainly not as much a freak as Hillary (not even in the same league), but he's still a freak.
That's my recent opinion of him, anyway.
Huh..? He has two daughters and two sons-in-laws.....
Why not HUNTER?
Newt’s a touchy feely environmentalist. Newt makes lists and checks them off in every single speech he ever gives. Listen to him. There are 3 things we must do, there are 4 things wrong with that plan, there are 6 things we can try to fix the problem, there are 200 things, 400 things, ad nauseum. It drives me nutz. He goes into his professorial mode and drones on and on. Plus if he uses the word “planet” one more time, I’ll puke. I couldn’t stand to listen to him for 4 years, much less 8.
Newt has an extremely high opinion of himself, and just physically, his head is way too big (to contain all those brains). He goes off on tangents. Other than that, Newt is a nice guy, just as long as he never becomes President. I can take him in small doses, very small doses, but a big dose would push me over the edge into the loony bin.
Because he is just another CFR goon.
Too much baggage.
Because, despite all of his good qualities, he has perhaps the highest negatives of any Republican and is virtually unelectable.
“Has lesbian daughter—check”
I think you are confusing a daughter for his much younger half sister Candace, who is gay.
An in the closet elitist who would sell his own mother if he thought it would get him a vote. If he is so willing to sell out now on Global Warming, Iraq etc, what would he sell us out on in office?
Newt is the Right's Bill Clinton. A glib, unprincipled attention whore who will do what ever the polls tell him to do. Newt has more in common with Hillary Clinton then any average conservative.
newt sidled up to the piaps....
he has as high negatives as she does!!!!
newt should just continue to write books!!!
Really? Then why are all Newts ideas about the War to simply repeat the same bloody stupid mistakes Napoleon in Spain, the Nazis in Eastern Europe and the Russians in Afghanistan made? This is the problem. Too many people are seduced because Newt is a good communicator. Like most smart people, Newt assumes because he is smart in a few things, he is smart in everything. He not. To bad he is to arrogantly certain of his own infallibility to bother learning on topics he has NO clue about, such as the war. Counter Insurgency is not Total War. To try, as Newt is doing, to force the Total War peg into the Counter Insurgency mission hole is sure idiocy.
I like Newt and his knowledge of history and his enthusiasm, but I agree with the above statement. If there is one thing about him that has caused me NOT to be a Newt supporter, it is his arrogance.
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