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Posted on 11/18/2011 3:54:43 PM PST by jageorge72
Newt Gingrich's stumble out of the campaign gate -- causing him to lose his top advisors to Rick Perry -- might well be the best thing that has ever happened to his political career. That, along with his debate performances and a handful of other circumstances, explains why the former speaker of the House is now surging in the polls and why it is likely to continue.
And yes -- those are the words of one who has written Newt off for good on more than one occasion. And for what surely seemed like good reasons.
But those reasons seem long past now, as the former speaker has proven himself a far superior advocate to anyone else running of what it is that animates us on the conservative side. And it is this ability -- combined with our craving for someone who has this ability in light of the inarticulate Bush-McCain years -- that has convinced many to take a second, third, fourth, or fifth look at a man many of us had given up on. Yes, we know that Newt has not always acted like a conservative, and yes, he tends toward being an incessant government tinkerer. Yes, some of those marital issues are troubling, as was NY-23 and the David Gregory/Paul Ryan thing and most of all...the Pelosi global warming thing. Yes, we get all that.
Yet, even so, the daydream of Gingrich debating Obama on a stage bigger than merely the presidential contest is something more and more Tea Party folks and others are publicly fessin' up to sharing. Admit it: you were giving Newt a second look long before you dared say so out loud or post it on a message board.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The voter intensity for the Dems would be huge. I have described it as how the GOP base would react if 20 years from now the Dems nominated Nancy Pelosi for President.
I often wonder how many of the people here who fell in love so quickly and completely with Newt were old enough and paying attention to his career as Speaker? I've asked a few, but most don't answer.
post #90. Well said.
I think the presidential debates are not going to change a single vote.That's ridiculous. Perry went from 35% to 6% precisely because of the debates.
The expectations on him are going to be extremely low.Wrong again.
He's President of the United States. That has built-in expectations.
You are completely discounting the independents, who really do shift, sometimes from day to day, in how they feel about things.
Those shifts are extremely volatile and extremely sensitive to the debates.
McCain's ridiculous pacing around while Obama talked and his absolute and complete inability to articulate the meanness and meaningless of Obama's background and "experience" were severe blows. Could he have won against the financial meltdown? Damn right he could. If he knew how to articulate the case against Obama. And he didn't.
Newt will do it. Against the overwhelming odds of a pro-Obama media.
The very fact that the media is ALWAYS in the rat corner means that the debates are the one true battle, the one true test, and completely in the public spotlight.
You say debates don't matter.
You must not think much of your own choice of candidates as a debater.
That's the only reason you're saying that.
I think I did. I’ve been around politics since Johnson. I’ve worked on more campaigns than I can count. I’ve paid great attention to his career. He’s done things for conservatism that no other conservative has done save Reagan. He’s also pissed me off more than once.
The ONLY thing that matters now is what he will do now. If you read his 21st century contract w/ America, his websites, his debates, & speeches one can reasonably conclude he is the Newt that brought about the Republican revolution in the 90’s.
Newt was & is known for following through w/ what he says he’s going to do, sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes not. I believe he will follow through w/ what he’s saying now. You obviously don’t. We’ll see.
The expectations on him are going to be extremely low.I guess you don't listen to the liberal media.
I guess you don't read the liberal newspapers and columnists.
I guess you don't watch the nightly news.
I don't do the latter, but I do the first two, and if you think for a moment that they are going to be able to "walk back" four solid years of them bragging about how great of a speaker Obama is (please don't tell me you've never heard them say that), four solid years of saying what an high intellect he is... he WON A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE! How are they going to "low expectation" THAT???
Low expectations?
Bull f*ing sh*t!
They've preened him, pumped him, inflated him, worshiped him and adored him.
He's THE ONE! Haven't you HEARD?
What PLANET have you been living on?
Low expectations?
What?
What?
I can tell you that I have personally talked to Dem. operatives. In private, they want no part of Newt.
You’re also wrong on stating Newt won’t peel off votes from the Dem.’s. Very wrong.
On the GOP side. Conservatives know this is nonsense.
Like McCain in 2008 and Dole in 1996 Newt is the good old GOP Establishement boy that the GOP machine will convince themselves is political "genius" to run.
And then, when confronted by the most fabulously unethical, dishonest well funded Campaign machine in US History, their "good old boy" will be painted as part of the corrupt Washington DC Establishment that "wrecked" the Economy. He will be lucky to win 250 Electoral votes.
The GOP is about to make a major mistake. it is going to run yet another GOP bot who the incumbent Democrat machine will be able to demagogue and out populist.
Newt is DOA. Too bad the GOP-bot machine is too politically incompetent to realize it.
And I can tell you they are lying to you. They desperately LONG for Newt. Newt is the one GOP candidate the Democrat machine can successfully run as outsiders against.
The GOP is about to make a major mistake. it is going to run yet another GOP bot who the incumbent Democrat machine will be able to demagogue and out populist.
Newt is DOA. Too bad the GOP Establishment machine is too politically incompetent to realize it.
Well you been around since Johnson and think Newt is a good idea.
No wonder the GOP get’s it ass handed to them election time after time.
Newt is Dole 1996, Bush 1992 and McCain 2008 all roled into one corrupt little Establishment bot package
what it is that animates us on the conservative side.
On the GOP side. Conservatives know this is nonsense.
Like McCain in 2008 and Dole in 1996 Newt is the good old GOP Establishment boy that the GOP machine will convince themselves is political “genius” to run.
And then, when confronted by the most fabulously unethical, dishonest well funded Campaign machine in US History, their “good old boy” will be painted as part of the corrupt Washington DC Establishment that “wrecked” the Economy. He will be lucky to win 250 Electoral votes.
The GOP is about to make a major mistake. it is going to run yet another GOP bot who the incumbent Democrat machine will be able to demagogue and out populist.
Newt is DOA. Too bad the GOP-bot machine is too politically incompetent to realize it.
Is Newt Gingrich America’s Mikhail Gorbachev?
Gorbachev is the architect of “glastnost” and “perestroika”, the economic and political reforms which began in 1985 and resulted in the end of communism and the breakup of the Soviet empire in 1991.
But, the end of the Soviet Union and the resulting first ever truly democratic election in Russia’s history were not his goals. Far from it, Gorbachev was a consummate insider, and party loyalist and to outsiders, just another in a long line of hardliner Soviet operatives.
The goal of his “reforms” were to save the system, keep the status quo and to make for a more effective and efficient form of Communism. Yet, the forces once set in motion took on a life of their own and those around him were swept up in them or swept away by them.
Gorbachev, to the very end, was neither hardliner nor truly democratic. In the end, as the effects of these reforms became obvious that the outcome would be the demise of the Soviet system and Communism, Gorbachev was left standing alone in a nowhere man’s land. His political allies, all establishment hardliner Politburo members tried to have him ousted in a failed coup, and the true reformers which he mostly used for convenience had moved on without him.
In the early years of his administration, no one, not in the West and surely not in the Soviet hierarchy, saw his reforms leading to such a radical political realignment. In the West his critics thought it was all more of the same Soviet deception. In the Politburo, it was seen as a younger, more aggressive form of Communism and every day in every speech, right up to the end, Gorbachev never wavered from his loyalty to Communism and the system.
He was the insider-reformer that the liberals and hardliners could both agree to support, each seeing in him what they wanted to see and what they thought was needed to achieve their very opposite goals. Only Gorbachev could convince the party apparatchik to go along with his reforms because they trusted him as one of them; Gorbachev would not let it go too far they were sure. The liberals, the true reformers believed that if they just started down that path the inevitable forces of change would continue to propel them towards liberty. They were right. Reforms always work that way. A people, once they see what can work, will insist that it continues to work.
In America we have a situation of what some call “Crony-Capitalism”. The differences between the bailouts of the Bush administration and the Obama administration are few and far between. The courts are totally out of control and a defacto oligarchy. The congress is deadlocked and so set into their own arcane rules and gamesmanship, that they are unable to put forward even the simplest of budget cuts.
Into this period of American history comes an establishment insider, a paragon of Crony-Capitalists, and someone skilled at playing to both sides of an issue, while claiming to be a reformer, casting the vision that both sides demand: Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.
To true Tea Party Conservatives, Newt cannot be trusted. They see him sitting on the couch with Nancy Pelosi. To Evangelicals, they see twice divorced and flip flops on issues like Marriage and Abortion. To the Establishment, they see someone who was one of them, now campaigning against them.
On the other hand, these same Tea Party folks and Evangelicals see him as the only candidate who says he will take on the out of control judiciary, balance the budget and who can manage a weak and inept Congress. The establishment too, knows and believes much of this is just election posturing, Newt is highly unlikely to usher in the radicalism of a Bachmann, Santorum or Paul. Right?
Thus the question, posed to history itself…. Could Newt Gingrich be our Mikhail Gorbachev?
How do you know they’re lying to me? Facts, not opinions please.
Actually I think most people who are critical of Gingrich do have an alternate candidate who they support. Cain, Paul, Perry, Bachmann... all have strong supporters here. So it’s not so much that they are looking for the impossible perfect candidate as it is that they think their candidate is better.
And they have the perfect right to think that.
Do some people here engage in rude forms of argument? Yes, of course. I’ve done it myself. It goes with the territory.
When I used to support Perry I would get in heated arguments with his critics.
Now that I’ve switched to Newt, I don’t get so excited anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve been burned once and just don’t want to get so worked up all over again.
But I also think it’s because I don’t feel the need to defend Newt. Newt can take care of himself.
Now it’s more like I’m just saying what I think instead of being on the defensive all the time, like I was when I was defending Perry.
(And for the record, through it all, I’ve always liked Cain. I just never picked him as my first choice.)
Why would you want to know, agitprop?
I agree with you that he still must be considered a long shot for the nomination.
I think if he wins the nomination, he wins the presidency.
But the nomination is going to be a very tough road for him, you’re right.
He’s got history on his side, though, in my opinion, in the sense that everyone is looking for something truly different and this might be the year for a conservative intellectual.
I also agree with you that he’s not particularly likeable. I “like” Cain more. I even liked Bush more, back before I started actively disliking him.
There’s no warm and fuzzy with Gingrich, that’s for sure.
But, like Churchill, he’s the man for our time. History is ripe for him.
I agree. I want Obama humiliated, groveling, and curled up in a fetal position. I want him to be revealed as the fraud and imposter that he is and I want it done in front of everyone on national t.v. I want Mr. Fifty-seven States to become an object of ridicule. Only Gingrich can do that. It would be fun to watch.The thought of it makes me smile.
If Newt gets the nomination the election is going to be an interesting ride.
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