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#215613 - 11/29/11 08:43 PM
Re: Newt's comeback...?
[Re: jabber]
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Boomer in Chief
Registered: 03/12/10
Posts: 3212
Loc: Illinois
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Newt's comeback has been amazing. I was talking about it with my husband and son the other day. (They love a good political discussion). I asked them whether or not they thought a dark horse candidate would yet emerge whom the Republicans could all rally around. I mean, someone new, who hasn't yet appeared on the debate stages or the campaign trails. They say no. And even if there were such a person, I am not clear on whether or not it is too late to get on the ballot for the Republican convention. Meanwhile, it seems clear to me that each of the current candidates has some problems, as we've already been discussing: I can't imagine the Bible Belt will be able to swallow the bad behavior Cain has revealed, for example. And as successful as he has been as Massachusetts governor, I am not sure Republicans as a whole can get past Romney's religion. The Mormon Church has a reputation of its own... As for the former governor of Texas, Mr Perry has just made another foot in mouth gaffe, this time in New Hampshire. Seems he forgot what the legal voting age is... So that leaves Newt and Michele Bachman, as well as Ron Paul among the bigger candidate names. I think Paul will end up running again as a third party candidate, which will make him a spoiler -- keeping whomever the Republicans choose from having any chance. But that's just my humble opinion. Not saying I have any sort of crystal ball! Who else wants to take a stab at prognosticating on this?
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#215841 - 12/18/11 02:01 PM
Re: Newt's comeback...?
[Re: Anne Holmes]
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Registered: 11/04/08
Posts: 601
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Anne, I have to disagree with you about voters in the Bible Belt not putting up with a candidate's behavior. Oh, they talk a good game here, all right, but this is the area of the country that specializes in teen pregnancies and multiple marriages. Living here for a long time has made me pretty cynical. What the folks around here really support is 'other' people behaving better.
Remember back in 2008 when it was revealed that Sarah Palin's daughter was pregnant? A lot of people thought that might be a problem. Not here! We actually lead the nation in men and women married 3 times or more. That's one of the reasons why Newt is doing so well: he has used the old "I've been forgiven" routine, wbich in his case means he can do whatever he wants.
I think you are right about Romney's religion being a problem. Even though he has been married to the same woman and doesn't seem to be a serial killer, people will decline to vote for him because of his religion. Never mind the fact that the Constitution actually states that there will be no religious tests for office AND we seem to be more intolerant than in the past, Mitt is just the wrong man in the wrong place.
Ron Paul, of course, being a libertarian, doesn't support any of the evangelical social issues, so those voters can deal with that as they choose. It will be interesting. You know, voters keep complaining that they want candidates to be honest, but only support people who tell them what they want to hear....
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#215847 - 12/19/11 04:11 AM
Re: Newt's comeback...?
[Re: Ellemm]
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Boomer in Chief
Registered: 03/12/10
Posts: 3212
Loc: Illinois
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Thanks for your insights, Ellemm. I appreciate them, and I'm sure the rest of the forum here does as well. Newt is an odd character, IMHO. As I've said earlier, I heard him give the keynote at a PRSA National Convention, at least 15 years back, and I have to say I was amazed that the audience almost booed him off the stage. I can't recall what he'd done that caused that reaction. But it was a memorable event. Here's an interesting OpEd piece about him by E.J. Dionne Jr. which I pulled from the Washington Post. It's long, but I think it is worth a read... Newt Gingrich and the revenge of the base By E.J. Dionne Jr., Sunday, December 18, 7:14 PM
It is one of the true delights of a bizarrely entertaining Republican presidential contest to watch the apoplectic fear and loathing of so many GOP establishmentarians toward Newt Gingrich. They treat him as an alien body whose approach to politics they have always rejected.
In fact, Gingrich’s rise is the revenge of a Republican base that takes seriously the intense hostility to President Obama, the incendiary accusations against liberals and the Manichaean division of the world between an “us” and a “them” that his party has been peddling in the interest of electoral success.
The right-wing faithful knows Gingrich pioneered this style of politics, and they laugh at efforts to cast the former House speaker as something other than a “true conservative.” They know better.
The establishment was happy to use Gingrich’s tactics to win elections, but it never expected to lose control of the party to the voters it rallied with such grandiose negativity. Now, the joke is on those who manipulated the base. The base is striking back, and Newt is their weapon.
It’s not as if the criticisms being leveled at Gingrich are wrong. On the contrary, there is a flamboyant self-importance and an eerie sense of mission about him. “I am a transformational figure,” he has said. He explains the hatred of his enemies as growing from their realization that “I’m so systematically purposeful about changing our world.” He has also declared: “I have an enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it.”
But wait a minute: Gingrich offered the first set of thoughts in 1994 and spoke of shifting the planet way back in 1985. Newt, in other words, has been Newt for a long time. Yet many of the same conservatives who now find him so distasteful were cheering him on for the very same qualities when he was their vehicle for seizing control of the House of Representatives in 1994. Liberals who criticized these traits in Gingrich back then were tut-tutted for not “getting it,” for failing to understand the man’s genius. It’s only now, when Gingrich threatens the GOP’s chances of defeating Obama, that party elders have decided that what they once saw as visionary self-confidence is, in fact, debilitating hubris.
Gingrich is said to be too tough on his opponents, too quick to issue outlandish charges. He’s actually been quite candid about his take-no-prisoner approach to politics.
“One of the great problems we have had in the Republican Party is that we . . . encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words which would be great around the campfire but are lousy in politics. ... You’re fighting a war. It is a war for power. ... Don’t try to educate. That is not your job. What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority.”
That would be Gingrich in 1978, reported by John M. Barry in his excellent “The Ambition and the Power,” a book about the fall of former House speaker Jim Wright and Gingrich’s role in bringing him down. Again, Gingrich is a thoroughly consistent figure. The guy you see now is the same guy who always preached a scorched-earth approach to politics.
And in truth, the party took his approach to heart. If discrediting John Kerry’s service in Southeast Asia through false attacks in 2004 was what it took to reelect a president who had avoided going to Vietnam, what the heck. Those who believe in Boy Scout virtues don’t belong in politics, right?
Perhaps the establishment will yet manage to block Gingrich. There are certainly enough contradictions in his record, and he carries more baggage than an overburdened hotel porter. When National Review, that keeper of conservative ideological standards, recently criticized Gingrich for “his impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas,” its editors were reciting from a catechism that his critics wrote long ago. Meet the new Newt, same as the old Newt.
This quality endows Gingrich with a peculiar integrity, which I realize is a problematic word to apply to such a problematic figure. I use it in a very specific sense: He is who he is and always has been. The base knows this and loves him for it. But for Republican leaders, Gingrich has become inconvenient. He’s the loudmouthed uninvited guest who is trying to rejoin the country club. The effort to blackball Newt Gingrich will be the next drama in this fascinating train wreck of a campaign.
ejdionne@washpost.com
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