Posted on 12/01/2011 7:57:27 AM PST by Fred
NEWT GINGRICH is the latest unlikely figure to vault to the top of Republican presidential polls, and unlike those who preceded him - Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain - he’s likely to stick around. That’s partly due to necessity. With just a month until the Iowa caucuses, conservatives don’t have time to anoint a new savior. It’s also because, despite his copious shortcomings, he seems immune to what felled the others. An able debater, he won’t flop like Perry and Cain. He’s not a full-on nut like Trump. And his legislative record eclipses Bachmann’s, which barely exists.
But his late emergence as the “true conservative’’ poised to challenge Mitt Romney is rich, and its broader significance underappreciated. For two years, the driving force in national politics has been the Tea Party, whose founding myth was that ordinary citizens were rising up in defiant objection to the hidebound, self-dealing ways of Washington. Greedy politicians, this view held, had bloated the government and lined their own pockets at taxpayers’ expense, while letting the country go to rot.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
I think the Tea Party will have succeeded if they can get a true conservative on the ticket as VP and elect more conservatives to the House and Senate.
Yup.
Correct
And so has the GOP. If Gingrich would win the nation would be trading one piece of trash for another piece of trash.
They want him for the nominee, because they have plenty of ammo to take him out when the time comes.
To the headline, I agree completely.
We have failed to get a true conservative at the top of the ticket. The best we can hope for is second place.
Gingrich is NOT a Tea Party conservative. I believe he disdains the Tea Party as well as anybody who adheres to its principal tenets.
I will probably write-in a name before I vote for Newt.
Yup. the tea party is now owned by the GOP.
I agreee. Primary defeats of people like Snowe and getting a GOP majority in the Senate while getting a veto-proof majority in the House would be more effective than whoever gets to be POTUS, including Obama.
But if NOOT or Willard is the answer, someone is asking the wrong questions.
The Tea Party is based on Newt’s original Contract with America. What a surprise Boston Globe says Tea Party failed. Are you supporting anyone or just out to attack any Republican who happens to be in the lead? Newt is where he is because of his abilities which have really become apparent when he has been placed side by side with the other candidates.
“I think the Tea Party will have succeeded if they can get a true conservative on the ticket as VP and elect more conservatives to the House and Senate.”
Now that you mention it, maybe that would end up serving the people better than simply one truly conservative person, even if that person is President. It’s much harder for the MSM to throw a wrench in the works that way.
I feel better already.
In succession, the people who make up this mythical thing called the “Tea Party,” have supported Ross Perot, Alan Keyes, Pat Buchanan, Alan Keyes again, assorted minor figures like Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Herman Cain, more assorted minor figures with thin resumes like Michele Bachmann, and now the most unlikely person of all, Newt Gingrich. Somebody please tell me why I should trust the judgement of the so-called real conservatives who make up the Tea Party?
The TEA Party BRAND is now owned by the GOP, but I would argue that the core tenets are alive in the people of the TEA party.
That being said, I’m sick and tired of the MSM dictating our elections. They know that a majority of the population are mush-brained zombies marching in lockstep with the perceived wants of the nation.
Sadly, with such a broad reach, the MSM will reach more voters than those of us on the ground.
Agree.
I don’t agree. Every single GOP candidate running this time around has been influenced by the clout of the Tea Party. We need to remember that unfortunately politicians of all stripes often are driven more by their desire to be elected than by firmly held convictions. That said, clearly most if not all of the GOP contenders have thought long and hard about what the Tea Party stands for and how they can fashion their message and campaigns to tap into Tea Party support. Maybe at their core they are not ideal Tea Party candidates, but the Tea Party has affected them, and American politics in general. They have not failed, despite what the media wishes for.
I knew it was over when Willard spoke at a tea party event a few months back.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Newt would be fine, he will be center right and will help to turn back the tide. It has taken 80 years of bad liberal policy to get here it will take decades to repair. Newt is better than Romney, and some of the other candidates. He will also be damn tough on Obama in the election.
Amen. If this is all the Republican Party can offer me then it is time to become an independent.
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