You know what Newt, I bet that shrinkermd doesn't believe in Global warming either.
Posted on 05/07/2008 6:45:26 PM PDT by shrinkermd
Wonder why the Republicans seem dead and dispirited? Why not look at Kemp and Gingrich? Fox puffs these two as authorative Republican voices.
Jack Kemp had 17 years in the House but he quit 20 years ago. He seemed to run for VP and finally Dole decided (1996)he should have this chance. Both were easily defeated by a younger and more personable man. What Kemp has to offer is allegedly some supply side economics. Actually, if you listen to him he has a series of platitudes that would place him left of center in the Republican Pary. Besides being dull, boring and dated, he has nothing to say.
Newt Gingrich was elected to the House in 1978; he eventually became Speaker of the House. He fancies himself an intellectual and an academic. He writes books that a few buy but no one reads. He claims that the 1992 election that swept the Republicans to power in the House was his doing with his "contract with America."
Actually, for those alive and voting, what stood out was the House members were routinely writing checks with insufficient funds. These interest free loans created a scandal--fortunately most were Democrats. Gingrich rose to power on this basis.
He fell from power (Wikipedia does not include this) when a pornographer offered a million dollars to expose elected Republican adultery. The person who witnessed Newt and his now wife getting it on easily collected the million or so we are to believe. In any case, he quit both being Speaker and the House (1999). No one ever mentions this, but it must be in the Internet someplace.
Now, he has all kinds of dire predictions--probably some of the true but not for reasons he gives--that only he can remedy with his magical policy solutions.
Let us face it. Newt blew his chance to make a difference when he first tried to impeach a President for lying about an affair and then getting caught in a similar position. He probably should take Bob Dole's old job as a Viagra salesman and quit telling us he has the best interest of anyone except himself at heart.
Kemp is Kemp, but Gingrich is a true disappointment.
Gingrich has been on the couch with Naughty Nancy.....I don’t care what he thinks anymore.
Newt is a stellar disappointment. How this man could have once been a pivotal leader in the Republican Revolution of 1994 is beyond me. Have you seen the commercial of him and Nancy Pelosi together pimping the global warming/climate change catastrophism? ....talk about a barf alert....
“Gingrich has been on the couch with Naughty Nancy.....I don’t care what he thinks anymore.”
That’s right. One doesn’t even compromise one little bit with these people. They are the enemy. Screw them.
How about Kasich, Watts or Santorum, instead?
mccccain’s going to look just like bob dope 1996.
Neither side has much in the way of real competence left. The big issue is shaping up to be the economy and neither side has a solution. The Republican prescription of free markets might have been all well and good, but it is clear that free market economics are not to be applied when investment banks start going under. Energy is truly a national security as well as an economic issue, but the Republicans are just fine with no effective energy policy at all, or one that has not changed in 5 decades. If you are happy to rely on Middle East oil at $20 a barrel why not $200 a barrel.
We face some really huge and deadly serious problems and neither side has a solution. It is quite fine for Newt and Jack to tell the Republican leadership that the emperor has not clothes. Everyone else can already see it.
I disagree about the Contract With America. It made it hard to argue that “all politics was local.” You know what’s on the menu at McDonald’s anywhere in America; you’re not so sure about the corner diner in an unfamiliar town. If you voted Republican in 1994, you were getting a candidate who supported a set of principles. As successful as it was, I’m surprised the effort wasn’t repeated.
i just caught kemp on h and colmes...
mentioning what great orator obama was....
JEEES how inappropriate is THAT?
i don’t care to hear him say things like that...
if you are gonna be a leader....you gotta learn how to calla snake oil salesman a snake oil salesman...not a ‘great orator’.....jeeessh
Yep. Except he's going to win.
You know what Newt, I bet that shrinkermd doesn't believe in Global warming either.
I think Santorum has some aliveness. The other two suggestions—Kasich and Watts—seem disinterested in the future of the Republican Party. If I had the $, I would try to convince the former governor of Florida or the former Senator from Virginia to make appearances and see how they relate to the audience.
What we need as spokespersons are people who are alive, contactful and interested in what the Party believes and does.
No more Bushes, please.
Newt needs to go.
Gingrich has discovered Global Warming. As far as I’m concerned, that’s like saying he’s contracted a fast-acting and highly contagious form of Alzheimer’s. Too bad; he used to have brain cells.
He'll probably be the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio in 2010.
He's a self promoter of the worst kind.
Kemp is just clueless.
Presently, we have a plethora of those who are “love addicts.” They have a great need for love, acceptance and fame. It is part of the politicians motive, no doubt, but it cannot be the principal one. If it is, the electorate senses the insincerity and self-serving nature of the person trying to be the spokesman.
Good vanity — have asked myself the same question — very seldom turn on Fox News or the rest of the political shows.
Hair. Television is all about hair, don't cha know? It is hard to find unemployed has beens with that much hair. What's more, geezers that old with that much hair on their heads, usually have hair growing out their ears, noses, and wild uncontrollable eyebrows. I'm a thinking like the ever frumpy Warren Buffet.
Start with those under thirty. Questions—What is right with the Republican Party and what is wrong? or—Why I am not a Democrat—or Why we need a Republican majority in the House and the Senate.
We all get some entertainment. The thread should be interesting and long. And, who knows maybe we will find one or more to help us get the message across.
Maybe the effort wasn't repeated because those who were elected did anything but what they promised.
Gingrich is a Futurist/Globalist of the worst (RINO) kind.
I think Newt always wished he could be like Bill. Being a nerdy, portly unattractive type, he envied Bills smooth ways with the ladies. His affair was probably a copy-cat crime.
Gingrich and Kemp are absolute relics. They are so far behind the curve anymore they’ve lost relevance. They also have terminal Baby Boomerentia.
As his reaction to the Clinton/Monica scandal, Larry Flynt offered a $1M reward for proof of adultery by Republicans. Rep. Henry Hyde was the first caught in that net.
Newt Gingrich resigned from both the House and the Speaker's post after the GOP lost seats in the 1998 midterm elections. He resigned November 6, three days after election day; a lot of Georgia taxpayers were not thrilled about having to plan and pay for a special election long before the new Congress was even sworn in.
In 2000, Gingrich acknowledged having an affair with Capitol Hill staffer Callista Bisek, who is now wife #3. Last year, when his name was being floated as a potential presidential candidate, he admitted that that affair was going on during the Clinton impeachment.
That is what we know. Flynt never went public, that I recall, with his case against Gingrich. He might have approached him behind the scenes, but if so no one is talking. So we have as facts Flynt's offer, Gingrich's affair, and his resignation; the rest is rumor, plausible or even likely, but without much to back it up (unless I missed something, which I can't rule out).
I watched Kemp tonight simpering about how we need amnesty for illegals and how smart McCain was to pander to them and I wanted to barf. Newt has fallen hook, line and sinker for that idiot Gore’s climate crisis BS. Whatever they may have been at one time they’re both a couple of losers now.
It was a short-term electoral triumph, but mostly a nothing-burger in terms of policy results. Sound bites are easier than results, especially when you're trying to pass a constitutional amendment. During the Bush presidency, the Republicans in Congress have been little better on spending than the Democrats.
Trying another iteration of the Contract with America would make things too easy for the Democrats. They could point out that few of the CwA proposals became law, and paint the whole thing as doctrinaire posturing rather than "reaching across the aisle" and getting legislation passed. Obama, in particular, could sell the message that this is "politics as usual," and tap into all of the traits of Newt Gingrich as leader that turned off so many voters.
And your point about the McDonald's menu is apt -- but it's a double-edged sword. The original CwA let all the Republicans run on a national platform instead of bashing it out district by district. Trying to capture that again would allow the Democrats to attack all the Republicans at once instead of bashing it out district by district.
I want to see some ANGRY fiery Republicans who call the demorats on being the idiot socialist scum they are. Newt has become a milquetoast. He led us to victory once?
Newt is simply Clinton lite.
Thanks for the facts. I can see a non scandalous reason for quitting the Speaker job, but what about quitting the Congress?
Freepers whine and complain about having no real conservative candidate or leader. They forget there was a great conservative thinker and leader.....Newt.
They obeyed the presstitutes and threw him under the bus.
To be fair to Fox News, Karl Rove was a brilliant pick and worth every penny they pay him. Rove is worth listening to and has a good camera sense—both make him the best in the business. Dick Morris is a so-so pick; he can see what most miss, but he surely is not a very personable type.
We need some younger people.
..they're sitting on a sofa at the beach....
..bizarro world
Because they are the true icons and patriarchs of the Republican party.
It sure is. I wanted to throw up...
Politicians generally have oversized egos, and Newt is certainly no exception. I think he simply couldn't handle going from being a general to a foot soldier. I can't think of a Speaker in my lifetime who remained in the House for very long after leaving that post; Hastert is the only one I can think of who stuck around at all, and that was only a few months.
One reason I'm dubious of the theory that Newt was blackmailed into abruptly quitting is that it would have hurt the GOP more to squeeze him out before the election instead of days after.
I caught some of Watts on Hannity yesterday. It sure sounded like he was obama’s apologist, saying just because he attended Wright’s church doesn’t mean he feels like that. I don’t know if he included being married to someone who shares Wright’s beliefs. I guess black is thicker than conservatism.
Really, when we starting naming the list of Repubican “leaders” virtually ALL are sour disappointments — lacking conviction and political acumen. Jesse Helms was one who virtually never disappointed conservatives, but even he favored the “fairness doctrine” in 1987.
J.C. Watts, Sr., is a firm Democrat and has been trying to get the son to switch back to “democracy” for years now. That may explain your point.
Joe Martin left the Speakership in January 1955 and remained in the House until Margaret Heckler defeated him for renomination in September 1966. He had no qualms about remaining around when he was not Speaker.
Yes, and he not only “thanked” Gore, but the hapless Jack French Kemp stressed that he meant it “very, very sincerely”, implying that his fellows Republicans aren’t very sincere. I know Dole must wish he had never pursued the Kemp option. GHWB wishes he hadn’t selected Quayle. Eisenhower wished he hadn’t chosen Nixon, and Dewey wished it had not been Earl Warren. But Ford was glad he picked Rockefeller and then wished he had kept Rockefeller on the ticket, instead of Dole.
Hence the "in my lifetime" disclaimer. :P
There are some individuals whose egos can handle going from the leadership back to the rank and file; most notably John Quincy Adams, who served in the House after serving as president. But those folks are pretty few and far between, especially in the modern era, when any prominent former politician can make a lot more money as a pundit or lobbyist, not to mention book deals and speaking fees.
Now, that's not fair. McCain is a solid eleven months younger than Dole was in '96.
And I can no longer stand to listen to the Beltway Boys.......geesh, they are soo out of touch with the rest of the country.....I mean even the name!!
Kemp is a freakin’ moron. He never was that good. Gingrich made his mark and shined for awhile. These days he’s just so much hot air
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