Posted on 01/29/2012 11:50:43 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Tea Party or establishment. That's the name of the game in the battle for the Republican presidential primary nomination.
But sometimes it's hard to determine who's who. Frontrunner Mitt Romney has never worked in Washington but has accumulated dozens of endorsements from Republican officialdom. Newt Gingrich was House speaker for four years, and has lived in Washington ever since his 1999 departure from Congress, but he's running as the outsider who knows how to use his experience to crash the corrupt system and rebuild.
The expressions of support are an indicator where the divisions are lining up.
Sarah and Todd Palin have both said they're Gingrich fans. While the former 2008 vice presidential candidate hasn't expressly offered an endorsement, Sarah Palin has frequently worn the mantle of Tea Party spokeswoman.
On Saturday, businessman and one-time candidate Herman Cain jumped in at a Tea Party Express rally vowing his support for Gingrich -- for now.
"I'm not against Mitt Romney if Mitt Romney gets the nomination, I'm gonna support him. But right now, I'm hoping Newt Gingrich gets the nomination and I'm going to work, and try to see to it that he gets the nomination," Cain told Fox News.
On the flip side, Romney has pulled out former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the speaker's former Senate partner on Capitol Hill, to back him up against Gingrich. And on Sunday, Arizona Sen. John McCain explained why Mitt's the man.
"I would say that we had some rather unpleasant experiences with Newt Gingrich and one of them was the government shut down in 1995," said McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate. "My problems with Newt has been over earmark spending, billions and billions and billions. When Newt Gingrich became speaker they turned earmarks into an art form."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Wait. First he starts talking about some unpleasant experience and then he's off on a tangent about government shutting down -- which was it? Oh wait, it's Juan McShame, I guess for him, less government is a BAD thing.
FUMR!!!!
GOP Soul. That’s a good one.
The only thing the GOP is interested in now is pure survival, at all costs.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they don't have one. Every time I hold up a mirror to them, I don't see anything.
GOP Soul. That’s a good one.
Excellent.
Mordor on the Potomac vs. the hobbits. Round 2! Ding, ding, ding!
Oh really???
The way they are doing, it will be a difficult time getting in donations. This will be the fight for the soul of the party. Either we kick out the moderates who pretend to be conservatives or a new party will form in the future.
(John McCain (I’ll be nice) I think I would rather have Chuck Norris protection/honor. Too bad more of our elected officials didn’t have some of his backbone)
Help me refresh my memory.... What happened when we recently faced a potential shutdown?
Another debt ceiling increase, a credit downgrade, a failed super committee and another debt ceiling increase?
Seems rather unpleasant to me, but then, it’s all about the establishment.....
Newt Gingrich, an ‘outsider???’ Why, yes, that’s exactly what he is now. Washington DC is occupied by people who can’t help themselves. They won’t work within a budget, because, well, that might require some difficult decisions and negotiations, so, let’s just skip the whole budget thing. We’ll instead argue about how much more in debt we can get in the next few months...
Many leaders in the GOP came in as part of McCain’s campaign, and they’re sure that the reason why McCain lost was that stupid radical conservative arm of the Republican party. If those bible thumping racists had just contained themselves, McCain could have won. And they’ve gone out of their way to cut off at the knees any TEA party activist from seeking office.
Romney’s people are even worse, and just waiting to move into the top dog offices in the party across the nation. And they’ve got a load of targets, especially all of those who jumped the gun and endorsed during the primaries.
That’s how Newt’s an outsider, as there’s very little relation between today and when he was in office. There’s few people in congress at that point that could even imagine spending 10% of the GDP in deficit spending. While Romney’s been doing everything he can to get in the warm graces with the entire federal government in preparation for what was supposed to be an easy cruise to the nomination convention.
Yes, being willing to do absolutely ANYTHING to avoid government shutdown does indeed create an unpleasant situation. Sort of suggests shutdown would be a relatively pleasant alternative.
Gingrich was always a revolutionary. The most likely reason Clinton prevailed against him in the government shut down was friendly fire; he was out front and Dole, McCain, etc. were undermining his efforts.
Romney, on the other hand, is the standard bearer for the establishment in that he has no grand cause other than to perpetuate power in the hands of professional politicians.
I think this is the GOProgressives’ experiment in seeing if they can win without the base. I don’t see moderates and independents getting real excited about pounding the pavement and manning phone banks for Romney, but maybe they’ll come through.
It’s somewhat apparent that the RHINO wing is in line for another victory with Romney. Just another reason why conservatives should concentrate on Senators and Representatives for now as they will be sorely needed to keep Romney in control should he win. Personally I’m disgusted at the low level to which Romney has sunk, not to mention Drudge and Fox News. Looks like conservatives will have to work from the bottom up, not top down, for the time being. A separate party may be in the future, but not for this election - there’s too much to lose if Obama wins again.
I’m sorry. I can’t do “it” again. By “it”, I mean having the GOP tell me that we have to vote for someone who isn’t conservative “for the sake of the country.”
I voted for GHW Bush in ‘92, Dole in ‘96 and McCain in ‘08. Well, to be honest, I voted for Sarah in ‘08.
Now, once again, they want us to vote for a man who is no conservative and has, in fact, described himself as a moderate and progressive who didn’t want to go back to the Reagan/Bush era.
Romneycare...”I love mandates.”
No more...never again.
I’d rather live with four more years of Obama than eight years of Obama lite.
So, I’ll vote all of the down ticket races, and that’s it.
I’ll take him over Barry for now and do my best to get true conservatives in office. Needless to say I still hold out hope for one of the other candidates, but the “fix” for Romney appears to be a fact.
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