Why a Newt Gingrich Candidacy Would Doom the Tea Party

The Altantic ^ | 120611 | Conor Friedersdorf

[Fred]

Gallup finds that 82 percent of Tea Party affiliated voters deem Newt Gingrich an acceptable Republican presidential nominee in 2012. They don't seem to realize that if he wins the nod their movement is doomed, regardless of how the general election goes. The Tea Party cannot support Gingrich without betraying its core principles. But the movement also cannot disclaim him once he is the Republican nominee.

Tea Partiers with a better instinct for self-preservation would see that none of the Mitt Romney alternatives still running would be as corrosive to their cause as the former Speaker of the House.

Why?

The Tea Party wasn't just a reaction to President Obama or the financial industry bailouts. As Jonah Goldberg puts it, "a major motivating passion of the tea-party movement was a long-delayed backlash against George W. Bush and his big-government conservatism." Support for the War on Terrorism and the invasion of Iraq caused many conservatives to stay loyal to Bush. But that didn't mean they liked No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, the attempt at a guest worker program, TARP, or the Harriet Miers nomination. Especially after the defeat of John McCain, many on the right insisted they'd never again support Bush-Rove conservatism.

[CSI007]

Beat Obama at all costs?

Obama is evil. But electing liberal leaning republicans is not much better.

Principle before party. If half the morons here would listen to those three words we would elect conservative politicians most of the time.

We are out of time..A liberal republican in 2012 will not cut it. We need a massive swing back to the right or else we are doomed. It will happen fast and it will be permenant. Kiss a story book American dream way of life for you, your kids and all of their offspring good bye.

[SierraWasp]

"Obama called them, “bitter clingers,” Newt called them, “right wing social engineers.” Neither likes them."

You just nuked the new bandwagon with a volly of TRUTH!!!

[Sun]

It would be easy not to hold it against Newt IF it were the only thing. Newt has kissed up to Hillary, was for the Fairness Doctrine, you must have read the lists right here on FR.

Nobody is perfect, and a few of the candidates are worse than Newt. But we can do better than Newt, and I hope we do. There’s still time, as 4 years ago today Rudy and Fred were the front runners.

[The_Media_never_lie]

We are doooooomed!!!!

Cheer up, things will get worse!

The sky is surely falling!

[grey_whiskers]

I'm not calling you a phoney: I'm just surprised that so *many* people with early sign up dates are now showing up fr this election, when not even Palin's run with McCain brought them to the forefront.

I mean, before "The Thumping" she *had* the star power, the "it" quality, etc.

And, (*sigh*), dashing good looks.

So why the lament over no good candidates NOW, and why not spirited defenses of her along the way?

I think New England is lost to the GOP anyway: just as the Deep South, the Rust Belt, some of the Great Lakes, and the Mountain West are lost to Obaama in this economy.

We need to stop the influx of illegals into Texas to keep it from turning blue.

Cheers!

[tcrlaf]

“But we can do better than Newt”

Really???
Like WHO?
All of the “Conservatives” running have been Palinized, and destroyed by the mainstream media.

Like it or not, our choices of people WHO CAN WIN, anre now reduced to Mitt Romney, or Newt Gingrich. The time for wishes, puppies and rainbows has passed, the time for CHOOSING is here.

Of the two, only ONE has the the ability, the knowledge, and frankly, the balls, to call it as it is with an enemy media they will be facing, and get the message out above the din.

Remember, this is the guy who actually BALANCED a budget, and impeached Clinton, despite the fallout that later cost him. The Democrats fear him, and the RINO’s in DC that forced him out are fearful of his revenge, should he win.

[nathanbedford]

I have a rule which is to judge politicians in their historical context, that is, what did they know or what should they have known?

Imagine yourself George Bush, the president of the United States of America, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank and your Secretary of the Treasury walk into your Oval Office and say, Mr. President within hours the entire financial structure of the world will implode and we will be cast into a depression, millions of Americans will be thrown out of work, misery and deprivation will be widespread unless you move immediately to rescue these banks."

Here is a reply I wrote at the time that is, September 9, 2008 which calls for a certain amount of humility in judging whether or not TARP should have been implemented. Let's judge the call and the players involved in that short timeframe according to what they knew or should have known.

Here is the reply:

I have not yet posted on the wisdom of the bail out because, frankly, I do not know what to say. I do not know what to say because of the things I do not know. First, I do not know if the bailout plan will work. Second, I do not know if the entire world system will crash without such a plan. Third, I do not know what the odds are of either a successful bailout or a world crash so I cannot weigh the severity of potential harm against the likelihood of the harm occurring.

I know what my ideology is, I am opposed to government meddling in the economy on the way up and on the way down either by picking winners or by rescuing losers. On the other hand, I recognize the extreme danger to the very survival of my ideology should the country descend into a depression. I am well read enough to know about the Great Depression and what it did to other democracies around the world and how close our own American democracy came to descending into communism. So, I do not know in which direction lurks a greater danger to the ideal of conservatism.

I do know that the Constitution as written prohibits virtually every facet of the proposed bailout plan. I know that no federal court that I can think of will conceivably declare any part of the plan to be repugnant to the constitution. Therefore, I know I cannot rely on the courts to protect the Constitution. However, I also know that the political will will triumph regardless of the Constitution and it is bootless to fall on one's ideological sword to no purpose.

I do not know what it is like to live through a depression although my father has described what it was like in the rural South when people literally had no money and had to contrive a barter economy. On the other hand, I do not know what it is like to live through a raging inflation such as was sustained here in Germany during the Weimar and even today in Zimbabwe. I do not know if doing nothing will generate a depression. I do not know if these bailouts will generate hyperinflation.

I do know that if abandoning my ideology long enough to countenance the bailout would save the country from a depression, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I am not sure that those people on these threads who on claim to know the answers to all these questions really know what they're talking about. I do not know if they are so sure about their facts only knew because they are so certain in their ideology. I do not know all if those people who are so certain in their bailout do so because otherwise their ox gets gored. So I do not know how to come down on one side or the other based on the motives of the partisans on either side of the bailout question. I simply do not know what their motives really are.

I do know that economics is called the dismal science and now I know why.

Given the state of my ignorance, I am going to embark on a new course, I am going to practice humility.

I think we have to keep clear in our minds the difference between TARP and subsequent bailouts implemented by Obama which were designed to advance his ideology and himself personally. TARP was an emergency measure and the parties were entitled to believe they were in an emergency situation.

The bailouts were clearly no longer an emergency situation but they were deceitfully sold as such, Obama telling the world that they did not pass his bill by Friday the world would end. Tarp was a stopgap to avoid economic and financial collapse and the bailouts, although sold like TARP, were measures to accelerate recovery. I believe that both the men involved and the policies they implemented should be judged differently.

If one insists on judging the matter in hindsight, one should consider the cost of TARP as a few hundred billion dollars, which I understand has been paid back, against disintegration of capitalism. Strange to say, and perhaps shocking, but since then a few hundred billion dollars is what we have squandered on Solyndro and offshore drilling for Brazil and this gigantic sum now seems trivial by comparison.

To this day we do not know whether tarp was necessary but we do know the costs versus the downside risk.

[takenoprisoner]

"A liberal republican socialist, a republicansocialist in 2012 will not cut it."

fixed it...

[Prokopton]

TARP was an emergency measure and the parties were entitled to believe they were in an emergency situation.

I don't buy this. These people are supposedly smart, yet they were easily swayed by the typical "the sky is falling" claim. They did not read the bill nor know what it entailed. In short, they didn't do their job. TARP was merely another bailout for Obama's personal money men. This was not hard to see, many, like Bachmann, did see it. I question the judgment of anyone who approved of it, including Gingrich.

If someone is so "humble" they are unable to make decisions based on analysis instead of fear mongering, I do not want them anywhere near the reigns of power.

[Sun]

“All of the “Conservatives” running have been Palinized, and destroyed by the mainstream media.”

So you are allowing the lib media to pick your candidates for you AGAIN? How did that work out last time when they picked McCain?

But I do like Newt more than Paul, Romney or Huntsman.

[nathanbedford]

That is your opinion, what is your evidence, we now have three years to assemble that evidence?

[Sun]

“We are doooooomed!!!!”

Maybe not. Maybe the polls are wrong. I just don’t trust the pollsters, especially this early.

[Skepolitic]

“Time to move on and join the bandwagon.”

Kind of like GWB “abandoned free market principles to save the free market system”, many Republicans will abandon any principle in hope of getting elected and later to stay in good standing with the DC elites. They’ll even send money or campaign for a slug like McCain, a two-faced son of privilege like Romney, or a reprobate like Newt. Problem is that it won’t work. It didn’t work with McCain and it won’t work with either Romney or Newt. One’s efforts are better spent on House and Senate races.

[tcrlaf]

Newt is who they DON’T want to have running...

Take a look at the vehement explosion of lib media HATE toward Gingrich from just the last couple of days on Twitter, much of it coming from mainstream media people.

They didn’t see this one coming.

[Sun]

“Newt is who they DON’T want to have running ..”

But according your theory, if the lib media don’t want him, they will Palinize him, and then we will have to pick someone else. :)

But do you know who else doesn’t want Newt to run?

“”There are all types of leaders,” Coburn continued. “Leaders that instill confidence, leaders that are somewhat abrupt and brisk, leaders that have one standard for the people they are leading and a different standard for themselves. I just found his leadership lacking and…I will have difficulty supporting him as president of the United States.”

Gingrich has also taken flak from another former colleague, Rep. Peter King. “The problem was, over a period of time, he couldn’t stay focused,” King said of Gingrich a few days ago. “He was undisciplined. Too often, he made it about himself.”

It’s more than just former colleagues. If one were to survey politicos, journalists and others who lived through Gingrich’s years as speaker in Washington, there would likely be a near-consensus that Gingrich will blow up his candidacy through some mixture of arrogance and indiscipline. Those insiders simply don’t believe there is a New Newt. Old Newt, the Gingrich who alienated many of his colleagues back in the 90s, will reassert himself soon enough, they believe.”

more http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/insider-outsider-divide-over-newt-gingrich/236596/

But read the article, it’s not all necessarily bad for Newt.

[tcrlaf]

A lot of those people were the ones who didn’t support, were terrified of the government shutdown, and most especially, the Clinton Impeachment.

They also went along with the plan to get rid of Gingrich, in favor of other corrupt Repubs wanting to create a Shadow System just like the Democrats had.

It’s likely those people fear the revenge of Gingrich, more than anything else.

How soon we forget recent history.

[takenoprisoner]

“Take a look at the vehement explosion of lib media HATE toward Gingrich from just the last couple of days on Twitter, much of it coming from mainstream media people.”

They are idiots. He is one of them. They are just too stupid to see it. All they see is an (R) after his name. That is all their blinders will allow them to see. But once they get to know him, never mind, they won’t. At least I know him for the traitor to conservatism he is. He’s a RINO of the worst kind. Redact that, he doesn’t even qualify as RINO. He is a socialist of the worst kind.

See Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Newt is one of their favorite admirers. See his foreword in their book. BARF alert. You might regurgitate. I did. But over it now. It took a few days to recover. The trauma has only recently subsided.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Fred.

[caww]

It’s a difficult election to guage...the democrates have nothing in Obama to stand on so the only thing they can do is destroy our candidates before they get to the election, which IS their plan. ...but MORE... get voters to fight over them between ourselves so there’s no cohesion coming into the election. So far they’re succeeding if you were to go by FR.

I realize all of Newt’s past...and were he is today....but the fact remains we didn’t do better than what there’s to choose from....and so we’re left with determining from what we have. The best of the best didn’t step up to the plate...and there were probably several who would have were it not for the huge problems to more than tackle in this nation.

IMO politicians with any brains and gusto are abandoning the people because they see what’s coming and will be attending to their own affairs to be ready as possible for it.

There’s horrendous amounts of money flowing and moving throughout the world and this nation....most of it being manipulated...their game is on and in full bore.

[caww]

Isn’t it interesting that we see muscle being used to get politicians to speak out against our candidates?..on both sides of the aisle no less. Me thinks those out to destroy this nation are very much calling the cards in....so they either speak out or they pay a price.