Mark Levin has been digging into this establishment Republican business more and more. I didn’t get to hear much of his show tonight but he pointed out that Rich Lowry wrote an article for National Review in 2006 praising Newt and basically asking him to run for president...
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/218263/run-newt-run/rich-lowry
Then we get this article from Lowry this month, bashing the “old Newt,” one that Lowry had no real problems with in 2006!
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/285596/myth-new-newt-rich-lowry?page=3
I don’t really understand what’s changed and I didn’t get to hear if Levin drew any conclusions about it.
One other thing I don’t understand is this idea that next year’s election should be “about” Obama, and for that reason we should nominate a candidate who doesn’t have an attention-grabbing personality. It’s like that actress character in the Tim Burton Ed Wood movie who agreed to play in Ed Wood’s movie but told him she didn’t want to be filmed in a way that got her noticed. That’s not a recipe for success.
What is the harm of a candidate like Newt that draws media attention? Won’t the biggest problem next year be getting our message out? If we elect a boring candidate that doesn’t get enthusiasm or big ratings, the media is going to keep the focus on Obama. And it will be a relentlessly positive focus. The ONLY chance we have is to put up a candidate who is such a lightning rod that the media will be unable to resist covering him. That way he will get air time and he will be able to get his message out.
I also think any general election swing voter wants to know why our candidate is better than Obama. They don’t just want to hear about how bad Obama is. We cannot simply run a negative campaign that puts the focus solely on Obama without explaining what our alternative is. Romney is going to be so tongue-tied trying to explain how his positions have evolved and why they’ve changed that he’s going to have a heck of a time explaining his “current” positions in any depth. Obama will keep bringing the focus back to what Romney did in Massachusetts and how it’s very similar to some of the things Obama did. That right there makes the argument ABOUT ROMNEY, not about his platform and not about Obama. Romney can try to talk around it, but suddenly we have a much harder time defining to the voters what our alternative to Obama is.
It seems to me Newt is much better positioned in this respect. The attacks on him, if you believe the RINOs, will be about his personality much more than any confusion on his positions. Therefore it becomes easy for Newt to dismiss the personal attacks and say he wants to move onto the real substance of the campaign.
It’s better right now to have a candidate who has PERSONAL problems in his past than one who has problems WITH HIS POSITIONS. It’s a more serious time now and we’re not looking to elect a Miss America. People will have less patience for the personal attacks and more interest in the policies, so it’s much more important we have a candidate who doesn’t have confusing issues with his POLICIES like Romney does. Obama flat out WINS on personality against ANY of our candidates. Polls consistently show the public likes Obama as a person, but they don’t like his policies. Therefore how can we win by putting up a guy whose advantage is that he’s a squeaky-clean, clean-cut guy that’s wishy-washy on policy? Our strategy HAS to be to beat Obama on the ISSUES because we simply will not beat him if we try to do it on charisma and likability.
Incidentally, while the down-scale commentators on FOX have been leaning RINO, O’Reilly, Hannity and Greta have been much fairer. All of them seem willing to defend Newt and often have a quizzical expression on their face trying to understand just why he’s being attacked from so-called Republicans so much. Hannity was very animated last night about being upset and frustrated that the establishment was trying to pick the winner, and said that his audience was overwhelmingly e-mailing him that sentiment.
While I always watch O'Reilley and Bret Bair, I rarely watch Hannity, and never Greta. Many here on FR have given their opinion that Hannity was/is in the tank for Mitt. I did have that feeling awhile back, but I'm not so sure now. But I do believe that Tokyo Rove, Krauthammer, and even Brit Hume, whom I had immense respect for, are totally aghast and apoplectic at the thought of a President Gingrich, or maybe just a Presidential nominee Gingrich.
I'm convinced that Newt is who we need right now, he is a giant among midgets.