I fail to see how Newt is an improvement over Mitt. Both believe in government as the solution. Newt only talks good, but his heart is with Pelosi and Hillary and other government policy wonks.
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.
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?
If Newt gets the nomination the election is going to be an interesting ride.
Answering the Attacks_Gingrich campaign aims to rebut attacks – CNN Political Ticker - http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/18/gingrich-campaign-aims-to-rebut-attacks/
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