Posted on 10/16/2009 10:34:48 AM PDT by ConservativeMind
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) may have stepped into a political quagmire after endorsing a moderate New York Republican's special election bid.
A host of GOP leaders have tried to distance themselves from the ongoing showdown between Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a centrist Republican, and Doug Hoffman, the local Conservative Party's candidate. But Gingrich offered his perspective to the three-way contest for now-Army Secretary John McHugh's vacant seat on Friday when he became one of only a handful of conservative Republicans to openly back his party's struggling candidate.
“The special election for the 23rd Congressional District is an important test leading up to the mid-term 2010 elections,” Gingrich said of Scozzafava's candidacy in a statement to supporters, as reported by the The Post-Standard. “Our best chance to put responsible and principled leaders in Washington starts here, with Dede Scozzafava.”
Gingrich's key endorsement could spell good news for Scozzafava, heretofore supported only lukewarmly by her own party. Already, the Club for Growth, Concerned Women of America, evangelical leader Gary Bauer, former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and a host of other GOP supporters and lawmakers have sided with Hoffman, who has recently posted gains in preliminary polls.
By contrast, only about 17 Republicans have even written checks to Scozzafava's campaign, and the party's conference chairman -- Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) -- has altogether steered clear of the tough race.
At issue for some unsure Republicans seems to be a fear of a possible political backlash. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx.) knows that feeling all too well; after he announced his backing for Scozzafava, his conservative base attacked him viciously, specifically harping intimidate details of his personal life.
Gingrich, however, seems not to care about this brewing, inner-party divide. Instead, he championed Scozzafava's candidacy on Friday as the future of the party -- not necessarily the harbinger for a lingering party divide, as some pundits have speculated.
“The Republican Revolution in 1994 started very much like what we see today,” the former speaker said. “Like then, our country is reeling from misguided liberal policies, high taxes and out-of-control spending. This special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District could be the first election of the new Republican Revolution, but we need the momentum to get it started.”
Gingrich is buddy-buddy with Al Sharpton and Arne Duncan too.
Gingrich is yesterday.
Markos Moulitsas, founder of The Daily Kos has endorsed Scozzafava. Dede Scozzafava has also been endorsed by NYSUT, the largest labor union in New York, and an affiliate of the National Education Association.
Scozzafava also holds these positions:
Scozzafava has also run in past elections on the Working Families Party (a progressive party associated with ACORN) line on the ballot.
This lady isn’t a RINO, she is a big “R” democRat.
There are also 17 RINOs in the house who have donated funds to this Liberal democRat's campaign. They include Boehner and Cantor. I don’t have a full list, but I will be looking for it. These RINOs should be targeted for elimination in the primaries next year.
| From the desk of cc2k: |
Gingrich, part of the Washington elite. They’re not in it for us.
Fred and Jeri Thompson have endorsed the conservative, Hoffman.
Malkin on Twitter: RNC transfers money for Scozzafava (RINO-NY)
Things like this make me glad I left the Republican Party. There is no future voting for “moderates”...
So, where are all the Gingrich for 2012 people today...?
So Newt thinks the future of the party is a left-wing fascist.
Shut up Newt.
Should Sarah Palin get involved here?
Moving the GOP to the center has been the problem, not the answer. The GOP needs to move to the right.
Didn’t he do the kissy-face with Pelosi over global warming too?
There's a conservative running too, Asshole Gingrich.
You didn’t leave the party, the party left you. It’s time to grab it back.
Dunno. She might want to steer clear of this one since it looks like a big snake pit where everyone involved is going to get bitten.
Hard to believe there are freepers that want this jackass to be the GOP nominee in 2012.
That jerk Gingrich is still hoping to get back into the action. You’re through, buddy. Through.
Gingrich was always weak on social conservatism, and in his last year in office was pretty much doing whatever Clintbilly told him to do.
It’s no surprise that he’d support a vicious pro-abortionist. Especially when that rat Steele is doing the same thing.
Gingrich just made himself utterly irrelevant if he already wasn’t.
Gingrich?
Isn’t he the little short fat pink pig that sat on the sofa with Nancy Pelosi touting Globalony Warming?
And the traitorious scum that got Loretta Sanchez elected to congress to get rid of B-1 Bob Dornan?
Newtie, please have a heart attack!
No slant there huh? Like most of the authors from the DBM they can't help injecting their wishful opinion that Ms. Scozzafava's ilk are the center of the GOP. They are the left of any party, but shhhhhh we can't actually say that. We have to project them as the center so we can misrepresent the true center as Far Right Extremists. Never mind that in all actuality she is a good representative of the center of the World Workers Party.
Seriously, why doesn’t some article refer to Hoffman as the centrist Republican and Scozzafava as the far left liberal Republican?
Oh yeah, 2010 makes me so hopeful. :(
Gingrich has gone Hewitt. Same logic that was expounded to push Schwarzenkennedy as Governor of California.
Write off Gingrich if you already haven’t IMO.
How disappointing this is. Gingrich may have converted to Catholicism, but he’s of the Tony Blair variety, apparently.
The party wants only RINO’s and it wants them more to the left then in the past.
Socialists are infecting every corner of our party, their goal is to defeat us by having leftist’s in both parties.
Newt Gingrich shows what is wrong with the Republican Party. He is not strong enough to live by his earlier values. No to Newt and No to Scozzafava. No to anyone who cannot stand up for the rigors of true Conservative and American values. No to Washington Corruption....Newt is part of that corrupt swamp!
ping
I’ve taken a lot of heat here saying Gingrich wasn’t presidential timber. I appreciate him confirming that yet again. People need to see this wingnut for what he is.
Bob Dole, John McCain, Trent Lott, Lindsey Graham, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, New Gingrich, Mitt Romney... the list goes on. We live in the kingdom of Marxists and RINOs.
The nation is dying for the want of one good man.
There is no wholesome party to support. Conservatives are not organized well enough to take this nation back. The Republican party sells us out at every turn.
If we don’t get organized and make the Republican party our own, this nation is done.
I would actually support a movement to create a U.S. Government in exile, things have gotten so bad here.
We make a lot of noise as Conservatives, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think we have any real power.
We need to devise a concerted plan to wrestle control of the Republican party away from the RINOs. Unless we do that and immediately, we just wasting our time.
I agree let’s get to it!!!
-PJ
The Fearsome Fivesome: Gingrich, Dole, Bush I, Bush II, McCain. So yesterday, so obnoxious.
I donated! To Hoffman, that is.
I’m here...and disappointed.
A few months ago, I got blasted for suggesting that Newt wasn’t exactly a rock-ribbed conservative. Lately, I haven’t seen one hint of those people.
No more RINO’s.If they’re not Conservatives or have a major conservative background,Don’t vote for them.
The RINO’s in the Republican party have placed us into such a deep hole we may never dig our way out of it.
Yes, Sarah needs to come down and campaign for the conservative.
I would suggest that we find some high level people to join us, and hold a summit in Washington, D.C., dedicated to putting the party on record, with the intent to replace it’s leadership.
Part of the process should be to make a declaration of values that people can get behind and support. It would require a funding base. It would involve selecting good candidates and supporting them from the body that replaces the RNC RINO donations base.
As these people gain power, we simply infiltrate and overturn the Republican Party.
We should look at how the vilest part of the Democrat party took control back in the early 70s.
We also need to implement and coordinate Conservative programs at every level of public and government agencies. Our University hiring departments need to get severe pushback.
The move to redefine our values as a nation in our textbooks, should be destroyed.
I wouldnt give RINOs and the GOP Establishment the sweat off my ass. They have little to no credibility with me, and I will no longer be swayed by this "OH! MY! But you will give the election to the DEMOCRAT!" crap, I hear when there is a Conservative Alternative to the RINO in the race. We have debated it for over 10 years here on FR, and now it is time to stop talking and time to take action.
For that matter why don’t prominent conservatives just proclaim that they are the American centrists? Why continue to fall into the left’s trap and keep referring to themselves as the right? Paint the left with their own brush. They are the radical far left and we are the common sense middle. Just say it and make them justify sticking needles in babies heads and sucking their brains out as not radical.
Every time Newt is on Sean or the radio I turn it off.
I feel you brother. Made the same decision almost two years ago. True conservatives (not simply those with an "R" after their name) are invited to solicit my vote, moderates need not apply.
With all due respect, you are in denial.
The list is long, the group of Congressional Members that defeat us at every turn. Instead of bringing one more of those on board, Gingrich should be looking for ways to install sound people in Congress.
That he isn’t, tells you all you need to know about him.
He does/at least did have some very sound ideas, but if you can’t count on him to do the right thing, what does that to to help us? Well, it actually leads to our defeat.
I can’t tolerate that type of thing in any way shape or form. Those days are so over!
Hopefully Palin will talk with Fred Thompson and figure this out. A joint appearance up there with her and Fred would be huge.
Maybe it's the fact that she has won the Margaret Sanger Award?
Gingrich is a man of the past.
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