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If Gingrich is the answer, Tea Party has failed
Boston Globe ^ | 120111 | Joshua Green

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 ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: amnesty; gingrich; globeright2xday; mandate; newt; rino; stoppedclock; teaparty
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To: Fred
Our congressman who is a true conservative, says that if Newt or Romney are elected and we have a strong House majority and carry the Senate, congress will set the agenda, and the president will go along with it. I agree with him.

If they don't turn us away our socialist path quickly, nothing else matters.

21 posted on 12/01/2011 8:17:10 AM PST by kayak42
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To: saganite

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A half a victory is better than none, right? What if the Tea Partiers go third party?


22 posted on 12/01/2011 8:17:25 AM PST by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS! This means liberals AND libertarians (same thing) NO LIBS!)
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To: Fred

Oh wait, this is coming from the Boston Globe.... =.=


23 posted on 12/01/2011 8:17:47 AM PST by cranked
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To: Westbrook
Smart, Principles before sanity. Like the Bushido tradition. Things go badly, fall on your sword.
24 posted on 12/01/2011 8:17:51 AM PST by PSYCHO-FREEP (If you come to a fork in the road, take it........)
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To: Hattie

Thats it...just take your toys and go home and sulk


25 posted on 12/01/2011 8:18:08 AM PST by Magnum44 (Terrorism is a disease, precise application of superior firepower is the cure)
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To: Jim from C-Town
Finally a reply that says it all. I just wish everyone who has his or her own fav candidate would stop for one minute and ask themselves just like Newt said last night. Can you stand 4 more years of this??!!!
26 posted on 12/01/2011 8:18:43 AM PST by mk2000
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To: Fred

So what it comes down to is which candidate will be more hesitant to give the finger to Tea Party sentiment once elected.


27 posted on 12/01/2011 8:20:49 AM PST by rhombus
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To: Fred

Headline says it all. The Tea Party clearly has failed to field a credible candidate. They need to win some statehouses and build a bench. Newt is a face saving way to not vote for Romney, even though he’s a worse candidate in every conceivable way.


28 posted on 12/01/2011 8:21:08 AM PST by Huck (LIBERTY is the object.)
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To: Magnum44

Same old insults we’ve been hearing for years.

Better tell your master that they aren’t going to work this time.


29 posted on 12/01/2011 8:21:15 AM PST by cripplecreek (Stand with courage or shut up and do as you're told.)
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To: Fred

Honestly, Gingrich presided in the House over the creation of balanced budgets for multiple years, and he had to twist Clinton’s arm to get it done. I think he has better credentials for actually accomplishing what the Tea Party wants (control spending) than anyone else except maybe Sarah Palin, who isn’t running.


30 posted on 12/01/2011 8:21:34 AM PST by Thane_Banquo
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To: Wolfstar

Excellent observation! I agree.


31 posted on 12/01/2011 8:21:34 AM PST by CajunConservative ( Leadership. It is defined by action, not position.)
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To: Hattie

The problem is that the GOP as a whole is so much more left-wing than it used to be. As the GOP stands now it is incompatible with the Tea Party.

Look at the 2 frontrunning candidates for the republican nomination: Romney, who is a life-long centrist RINO and Gingrich who openly supports amnesty, global warming nonsense and supported Obamacare’s personal mandate. Both are complete opportunist phonies with very few conservative values.

So right now you have a faction of conservatives in a centrist(at best) party. I also believe the Tea Party has been infiltrated by fakes and phonies who want to bring it down(ie: people like Judson Phillips who the MSM run too).


32 posted on 12/01/2011 8:21:45 AM PST by bigdirty
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To: Fred

I guess some people are still clueless and think that the “Tea Party” is a political party.


33 posted on 12/01/2011 8:22:08 AM PST by LibFreeUSA (Pick Your Poison)
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To: Fred

When ordinary people think of Newt, I think they remember welfare reform, balancing the budget, and standing up to Clinton on the budget.

Compared to the horrors in the global financial markets today, and our unemployment and housing bubble fallout, the 1990’s look pretty good in contrast.

People would vote for Clinton again, because the 1990s were economically mostly noneventful.

The Tea Party was mostly about limited government, free markets, and fiscal responsibility. Local groups have turned it into whatever they wish — ours is hugely socially conservative, which made a lot of people leave. There is no youth movement in our Tea Party. (40 is considered young!)

Also, I started to feel cynical when the “Tea Party Patriots, Inc.” made Zazzle take away all my bumper stickers that referred to my being a “Tea Party Patriot” with a picture of a minuteman. I had no idea being a Tea Party Patriot would be trademarked. LOL.


34 posted on 12/01/2011 8:22:21 AM PST by agrarianlady
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To: mk2000
Can you stand 4 more years of this??!!!

If our choices are 4 more years of Obama now, or however many years of alternating Dems and RINOs it takes to destroy the republic, I might have to think about that.

35 posted on 12/01/2011 8:22:21 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: Fred

Newt understands the enemy and has proven he can articulate conservative positions. He is not pure in any sense but he can move the needle in the right direction. The tea party needs to flood Congress with people who love the Constitution.

I’m sick of inchoherent, post modern, post rational, presidents and presidential candidates from both parties. Newt has ideas and is persuasive and will not block a truly conservative congress from improving the country.


36 posted on 12/01/2011 8:22:25 AM PST by Rippin
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To: PSYCHO-FREEP

> Smart, Principles before sanity. Like the Bushido
> tradition. Things go badly, fall on your sword.

Without principle, there is no sanity.

The Christian Martyrs have much to teach us, even though none of us will endure what they did. Not yet, anyway.

I prefer to take it all at once rather than a torturous death by a thousand cuts.


37 posted on 12/01/2011 8:23:20 AM PST by Westbrook
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To: bigdirty

I’ll add, people are more concerned with beating Obama than having a real, principled conservative in the White House. They’ll end up with Gingrich or Romney and it will be new boss, same as the old boss and business as usual.


38 posted on 12/01/2011 8:23:33 AM PST by bigdirty
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To: Huck

Get ready to rationalize flip-flopping AND ethics charges. ;-)


39 posted on 12/01/2011 8:23:49 AM PST by rhombus
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To: cripplecreek

If you consider that an insult then you are pretty thin skinned. Instead of complaining about what you dont have, why dont you do something constructive with what you do have? Bitchin and moanin does not help and it gets old.


40 posted on 12/01/2011 8:24:28 AM PST by Magnum44 (Terrorism is a disease, precise application of superior firepower is the cure)
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