Posted on 12/11/2011 3:19:07 PM PST by Kaslin
The GOP race has me befuddled worse than I ever imagined it would.
The media keeps telling us that the only possible candidates in the running are Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. (Mitt Romney who evidently is completely ignoring conservative media now in an attempt to appease the American left, but I digress.)
I mean, if you would've told me that after the Tea Party of 2010, that the best the conservatives could muster--in a conservative year--with the most reckless spending administration in American history on the ropes--was two of the most inconsistent Republican establishment personalities to ever run for office, I would've likely convulsed.
Compared to the evidence before us as a nation, the amount of serious "get it done" power of will that is to be needed is significant to fix our nation. So after the field has been perused, we're going to have to choose between the guy who authored the healthcare blueprint that President Obama put in place or the only other guy on the stage who has been on record in favor of MANDATING the American people to buy health insurance (just like Obamacare does), I would've confessed to you it begged credulity. That and more convulsing...
Is anybody else here as mystified as me on how it came to choosing between the two abject weakest leaders of the GOP field?
Mitt Romney, a failure in attempting every elective office he has sought for most of the past seventeen years. And Newt Gingrich, a failure as a leader so badly that his own party ousted him after he engineered their greatest comeback.
These are the best options?
Unlike Ann Coulter, I'm not so clearly convinced that Romney will win. And unlike Newt Gingrich, I'm not sure Newt Gingrich should just automatically be given the reigns of power.
Romney will win if the coming Newt implosion happens during the primary and Mitt is our last chance to prevent Ron Paul from becoming our surrenderer-in-chief. But I sure would prefer a different option. For certainly we will be in a much worse position if Newt gets the nomination and then suddenly decides to mandate carbon credits, while lunching with Nancy Pelosi on a park bench.
All of this on the heels of our nation's greatest outcry for grassroots, common sense.
Which brings me to what happened last week...
I'm driving home and pop on my fellow talk radio colleague Michael Medved, who is interviewing some book author on why slightly crazed people make better leaders in times of great crisis than stable people do. Medved kept my attention because one of the first things he said after I got in the car was something along the lines of, "Your premise is making me reconsider my position."
Since talk radio personalities never change their opinion about anything I was clued in for whatever came next.
The author's study had looked at historical figures and the amount of manic depression they endured. Long story short, if you were slightly crazy, you were a great leader--at a specific time. If everything was running smoothly, then the emotionally balanced guy can keep everything afloat.
This premise has HAUNTED me almost daily since.
There is no question that Winston Churchill, besides being one of my favorite people from history, fit the bill. He had mad sleeplessness. He was irritable. He threw temper tantrums, and paid for it politically. He went through a season of near absolute exile. But when the Barack Obama of his era (Neville Chamberlain) proclaimed "Peace in our time" and waved a document with Hitler's signature on it to the cameras, Brits turned to Churchill and he propped up the world on his shoulders in its darkest hour.
The comparisons to Churchill are obvious for Gingrich. He's stubborn. Sometimes painfully so. He's strong of will, even if sometimes the application of that will blows in the wind. (I mean, he INSULTED the Paul Ryan legislation and his own voter base by uttering the words, "right wing social engineering.") He's been through his own season of exile, attempting to pay for his sins he followed Churchill's example and wrote extensively.
There is also little argument to be made that America is at a crossroads of perilous crisis. This, not so much from World War--though terrorism hangs in the back of our minds daily--but more from the war on the values we hold, and the lives we Americans intend to live.
Ultimately I believe that's where the comparisons end. Gingrich's problems have been based in character and the need to be liked. Churchill's problems were primarily of temperament and personality.
It's also likely that Churchill's most zealous supporters at his peak could've predicted the success he would have looking basically at his life up to that point. So one might ask, "Is the best Gingrich yet to come?"
We have nothing that seems to indicate as much, but how could we if he is the new Churchill?
For reasons I've laid out previously Romney will be an easy opponent for Obama to conquer in a general election match-up. With Gingrich's baggage, it would seem three good debate performances in late October 2012, probably won't overcome the billion-dollar media campaign Obama will launch if Newt goes two for three out of the gate in the primary elections.
Which is why, if you truly care about this nation--especially if you live in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina, I implore you to take this decision seriously.
Please study the records of the candidates involved, not merely their most recent soundbites.
The fate of the free world rests upon it!
No, I don't think he wrote that at all. He feels Mitt will be beaten by Obama.
"For reasons I've laid out previously Romney will be an easy opponent for Obama to conquer in a general election match-up."
He puts his pants on one leg at a time just like me.
I don't feel any need to compare him to Washington, Truman, William Wallace, Patton, Davy Crockett, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, as do the adherents of another one-time wouldbe candidate.
Getting tired of the journalists underestimating Gingrich. Americans are STARVED for an intelligent candidate. Newt remained cool last night despite the tough questions on marriage, infidelity, etc. He answered honestly.
Yes, Newt will beat Obama. Newt is the guy Coulter, Rove and Noonan never thought would get above single digit polling numbers; he lacked money, he had too much baggage; he lacked organization; evangelicals and Tea Party folks would not endorse him..what happened? he is SOARING. He is a little Churchillian...I think of the lady telling Churchill that he was drunk and Winston answered back..”madam I may be drunk but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly” or something to that effect...lol. Do I think Newt would say that? no but would Newt shoot a stunner at a fellow debator that would almost be the equivalent of that statement? yes...he is a stun gun
You gotta let that go. I love Palin's guts and her history of taking on entrenched corrupt interests, but she would not be able to recover from the image painted of her by the MSM and the GOP establishment.
We have to choose among the candidates still in the race. Wishful thinking will not change that.
Perfect.
BTW your screen name sure is fun to type, katiedidit1.
Are bears catholic?
No. He's Richard Nixon.
Seconded.
Americans have come to despise intelligence because it is so damn rare. We The People, ourselves, have been so dumbed down since the age of the Founders we can barely screw in the light bulb by comparison. (Now, even the light bulbs are getting smart and dangerous.) Intelligence is openly mocked, in favor of the flavors the elite media disguise as such and pass off.
Chances are that Newt’s “Good Newt” will be more prevalent in the future because of Calista. Figure out Calista and we may have a clearer picture of the new Newt. He seems very happy and generally more humble overall than in the past. Confident and happy. I like it.
and I would vote for Nixon over Obama.
and I would vote for Nixon over Obama.
Of course you would.
Personally, given a choice between a baseball bat to the skull and a crowbar to the knee I’ll choose “none of the above.”
You are so right Rita. The selected intellectuals are the media favorites and that applies to both the democrats and republican media darlings. When Newt blew old Sour Kraut the hammer away...I knew we had a tough candidate.
Nixon did a lot of good things as president and I have no problem in stating that...Obama has done nothing but damage and some is going to be very hard to UNDO
Yeah, but Nixon was also a liberal, one who squandered the political power of the “silent majority.”
Just like Gingrich squandered the political power of the “Republican revolution” of 1994.
Disagree with you 100% but not going into a lengthy historical debate with you over Nixon or Newt. I am delighted that so many Tea Party folks, evangelicals and republicans are supporting Gingrich.
Nixon remained active however, low profile and behind the scenes, and when 1968 came around he won a narrow but definite victory, followed four years later by a huge landslide.
After they drove Newt out of the Congress in 1999, the Left obviously believed they had finished him off as a political force. Ignored him for years.
Newt stayed active however, refused to lay down. He has continued to be the man of ideas and a questioner of the status quo.
Newt has the potential to recapitulate the Nixon performance, and unlike Nixon he knows how to handle the hostile press. But for Watergate Nixon would have been counted a very successful president. Newt has the same opportunity, and is not likely to pull a Watergate.
I don’t know about that. He seems to me to have a great capacity for turning victory into defeat.
Our money is on the NEWT-inator!
He will not back down. He will do more and he will do it better than any of them.
Anyone just not voting or comming out for the other side, because they did not get their first choice of candidate, is a traitor.
Kick their ass!
The comparison is Gingrich is Chamberlain.
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