Posted on 03/13/2011 5:21:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
Newt Gingrich has a lot going for him if he decides to run for president -- a famous name, a record of accomplishment, a knack for raising money and a rhetorical flair that appeals to his party's conservative base. It's almost enough to make you forget his central handicap, which is that he is Newt Gingrich.
Succeed Barack Obama in the White House? Given his latest news making, he has a better chance of replacing Charlie Sheen in "Two and a Half Men."
The chief problem is not that Gingrich has been through two divorces and is married to a woman with whom he was having an affair while married to his second wife. Last week, he did himself no good by attributing his lapses to excessive work and patriotism. But Americans don't care that much about sexual probity in politicians.
They elected Bill Clinton after Gennifer Flowers came forward to say she had an affair with him. Following his impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he left office with the highest approval rating of any outgoing president going back to Dwight Eisenhower.
No, Gingrich suffers from a worse flaw: He is a demagogue, and demagogues don't get elected president of the United States. They get TV attention, they sometimes get big crowds, they even win the occasional primary. But their only essential function is to fail.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
He must have a pet mouse in his pocket????
None taken 8^D. I'm 48 and I don't want anyone older than me running for President. At worst, nobody over 60. Old War Heroes (Bob Dole, John McCain) are nice to honor and talk to, but they don't seem to have the fire to take on our opponents in the political arena. I just don't want someone to be the GOP nominee "just because it's his turn".
well said. I agree. He is brilliant with exception of a few loose wires. There is one component I would add ... no one really likes him. He has a certain air about him that turns people off. Never underestimate the power of likability. Idealogy alone doesn’t win elections. There are too many voters that don’t care about idealogy.
He is a demagogue and Obama is what?
Newt is what everybody else is not. He is a thinker, a visionary. He doesn’t look at next week or tomorrow, he looks out 50 years or so.
He is a historian and knows well the mechanisms that were at work shaping events of the present. He is able to extrapolate trends over long intervals and visualize the results.
For that reason he can not win. People can’t keep up with his thought and find excuses for destroying him.
History is a process, not an event
Great post and so true
Isn’t that called a critical failure?
let’s play a game.....
Who Can We Trust ?
The Founders seem to have said ‘don’t trust anyone”
[or NO one can be trusted ]
He’s not brilliant. James M. Buchanan is brilliant. Norman Borlaug is brilliant, MacArthur was brilliant.
Gingrich is above average, marked against forth rate college professors, and of course politicians. So, it just seems so.
Ethically, morally, he is a shallow opportunist. A Bill Clinton of the right( ish ) stripe.
LOL! Very good!
The latter is why Ron Paul ran I presume. And he was quite effective. He got a lot of money, sold a lot of books, and folks who think that whole parts of the feral gubmint could be shut down discovered that they were not lone kooks and that a lot of others feel the same way.
I would like to think that reason 2 is why Newt would participate. He does not actually stand a chance.
He is able to extrapolate trends over long intervals and visualize the results.
Presidential candidates -- the successful ones -- always seem to need a "big theme." "Hope and Change," "Morning in America," etc. I'm not sure Gingrich could overcome his "wonkyness" to deliver such an image.
That said, I'd vote for him in a New York minute against Obama. He is competent.
If he wants to run as a Democrat this would be a resume enhancement. It will hurt if he runs as a Republican. Add to that...
Scazzafava... Pelosi... Lack of leadership during a government shut down...
These things jump up without thinking much about it. He would turn off enough people like me to guarantee an Obama win.
If he wants to help the country let him do so as a conservative spokesman even if there is an element of opportunism in any such effort by Gingrich. He would make a terrible President.
Must be the Bush family didn't get the memo. Old Poppy Bush and Clinton and Jeb Bush and Obama been having a regular love fest yet the GOP establishment think the Bush clan walks on water.
I agree with you that Newt is not a candidate who has a serious chance of being nominated, or believes the contrary.
I do tend to see four, rather than two, types of Presidential candidates, whackos aside.
The first is the “real contender” category. That’s Romney, Huckabee, (if she chooses to run) Palin, and a short list of others. You can’t real measure this category by after-the-fact degrees of success — when guys like Rudy Giuliani, John Glenn and Phil Gramm ran for President, they were real contenders even if they flamed out quick.
The second is the “serious guy whose candidacy builds his personal brand.” Joe Biden’s 2008 campaign were classic examples of this, and Newt Gingrich’s would be even more classic. The goal is to put ideas out there, sell books and lecture tours and visiting professorships and commentating gigs, position for the VP selection or a Cabinet seat with the winner, etc. The clear giveaways that someone is in this category are that they are NICE TO EVERYONE on the stump, and that they raise surprisingly little money. Negative campaigning defeats the point, and the people who ask for, and write, $2300 checks know that it’s not the real thing. I tend to think that Haley Barbour will be in this category if he runs.
The third type is the “tribune of the niche movement.” This person is bigger and louder than type two, because he’s not about just himself, but about the movement, for all that the movement has no hope of electing a President at the present time. Ron Paul is a terrific example, Dennis Kucinich is a good one, as well, as were Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, and Pat Buchannan’s campaigns.
The fourth type is the “has-been cry for attention.” Every cycle has several; Chris Dodd and Carole Mosely Braun candidacies are great examples of that.
Also another huge mistake Newt made in trying to rehabilitate himself politically was he didn't leave the Washington DC area. In this modern age of easy access to communication you don't need to stay in DC. That in my mind set the ground for the rest of his “political gaffes” with conservatives. By staying in DC he was absorbed into the beltway establishment culture and became “establishment GOP”. He did things that looked reasonable to the “DC culture” but moronic to real conservatives it made him look completely out of touch with the conservative movement. This was a movement that was changing dramatically in its relationship with its establishment leadership, it was going from a top down movement to a bottom up movement. (A healthy change in my opinion!) Newt missed all that by staying in DC. It's sad that radical conservative “bomb thrower who in his congressional career had made some statements about the need to empower people and decentralize government power became as hidebound as the bureaucratic establishment he once criticized.
Newt should have gone back to Georgia and tried to win a state wide office like Governor and gain some management experience. Then maybe the Senate, he needed to show he could appeal to people outside the narrow confines of a congressional district. He didn't do any of that, he probably thought after being Speaker of the House he was above all that. (As a historian he should have thought of John Quincy Adams!)It's also possible that deep down he thought that going back to Georgia and run for state wide office was too much a risk, he could lose! (Nixon lost and came back!) If that's the case then deep down he doesn't have ths the stones to be president.
I’m baffled by people that think Mitt Romney (Romneycare, major flip-flop on abortion, unlikable) or Sarah Palin (polarizing, inexperienced) have ANY advantage over Newt Gingrich? Newt has some flaws, but most are 15 years in the past, some are exaggerated, and he has admitted he was wrong in backing Scozzafava (he was basically misled into supporting her at the urging of local party leaders).
The only person with the experience, personality, values, likability, etc.. to beat Newt is Mike Huckabee. Huckabee might just sit out due to his inability to raise money, and to keep the good jobs he has right now.
The ease with which most of your are underestimating/dismissing Newt Gingrich is completely irrational. Newt will be in the top 2 for the nomination, no question.
“Newt has one thing I like. He thinks outside the box, and has ideas.”
Yes, he has some good ideas. I certainly would not be opposed to Sarah could including him in her administration.
Fine. He can be an adviser.
He has the vision. but not the judgment nor the ethics.
The GOP Establishment is about enjoying the perks of power through not getting into nasty fights with Democrats. Being "compassionate conservatives" like Bush wanted. Being "bipartisan" like McCain.
Piss on them all. We need people willing to fight to roll back socialism, like WI gov Walker.
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