Posted on 11/17/2011 2:25:24 PM PST by TitansAFC
As the debates accumulate, it becomes more and more evident that Newt Gingrich’s intellect, experience, articulateness and depth of knowledge elevate him to the top of the GOP field. Anyone should be happy to pay admission to watch him duel with President Obama in debate! He’s not as charismatic as Herman Cain or as smooth as Mitt Romney, but boy, does he have a brain!
Ever since the campaign started, Newt has always gotten in his own way. Now he has graciously stepped aside and let his creativity and intellect shine through.
Earlier in the debates, he bit the questioners’ heads off in a pique of surly crankiness. No longer. Now he just answers the questions as they come, often hitting them out of the ballpark. His perspective and insights are penetrating and his condescension has vanished (or at least is sublimated).
Unfortunately, he does owe some of his current surge to the unsubstantiated and vague charges against Cain. While Republicans generally dismiss these charges, they worry that they will hurt him in November should he win the nomination. Herman will recover. His positive solutions for our economy will lift him back into the top tier of contention. Michele Bachmann might also come back, lifted by a tide of opposition to any tax increases embedded in the deficit-reduction supercommittee’s recommendations.
But any recovery by Cain or Bachmann will not bump Newt from the top tier. The likely result of the debate process is to bequeath to Iowa three or four contending candidates and leave it to them to sort out.
If Newt is the candidate, will his personal baggage drag him down? It will hurt, no doubt about that. His marriages will be dissected by the media, and his family will be deluged with questions and well-laid traps.
His ratings will decline as the inevitable baptism of fire begins. As with Cain, he will experience a few bad weeks. But, as with Cain, his positive strengths will carry him through the fire and he will come out the other end.
But once Newt survives the process, he will be inoculated against the charges. He will have immunity against the issue.
And here is the core of Obama’s problem. All of the Republican candidates will be so thoroughly vetted — and purified — by the brutal process they are going through that they will be immune to his charges against them in the fall.
John Kerry never went through that process. His quick knockout of Howard Dean and the tepid challenge mounted by John Edwards did nothing to vet his claims of hero status in Vietnam.
Obama, on the other hand, survived the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers charges in the primary. When the general election came, they were old hat and had no electoral punch. Similarly, Bill Clinton got the nomination only after he had survived Gennifer Flowers and the accusations of draft-dodging. In November, those charges were spent bullets.
That’s the good news for Republicans. The nominating process has been so combative and the media scrutiny so searing that the candidates have been pre-screened. The FBI screening process is nowhere near as intense as the negative-research capacities of the media and political opponents.
If nominated, Romney will have survived the accusations of flip-flopping, Cain will have overcome the sexual harassment charges and Newt’s marital history will be yesterday’s news. And then we can get on with the business of winning the election.
And win it we will. Obama cannot survive his 60 percent disapproval rating on his handling of the economy (the highest ever recorded by CBS during his administration). Under his leadership, Gallup reports an almost 10-point edge for the Republican Party on handling the economy. Against a generic opponent, Obama draws only 43 percent of the vote. With the personal negatives on the Republican candidates aired and used up during the primaries, there will be nothing for Obama to hide behind.
There are times when you have to look at what matters, and elect a mean, surly bastard who can gain respect again.
I’ve worked pretty hard in my life and never found my penis in a woman not my wife. It’s a lame excuse from Newt. He cheated because he’s a cheater. Can’t keep an oath. I don’t trust people that can’t keep oaths, and his lame as “I love my country and worked so hard” excuse just makes him even worse.
Yeah really.
Wow the most recent philanderer who wound being a good president you can find is Jefferson? I think that proves my point.
“I’ve worked pretty hard in my life and never found my penis in a woman not my wife.”
As a woman, I find your response disgusting. Could care less where your body parts have been, I was simply correcting a myth of what Newt Gingrich said regarding his love of country and extramarital affairs. He said nothing of the sort, it was the msm’s interpertation of what he said.
I find people accepting his excuse disgusting. Really it’s just pathetic. It’s no myth, it’s what he said, he said he loves his country so much it made him work really hard and that made him do bad things. Cheated because he loves his country, that’s no MSM interpretation, that’s what he said, as you quoted. He’s the disgusting one. And anybody that thinks that’s a good excuse should feel shame.
No, you are not going to misuse my statement. I used the precise phrase that Gingrich stated. One can intrepret it anyway they wish. However, he did not say, I loved my country so much that I cheated on my wife, that is how the msm intrepreted the statement and I only wanted to make that particuliar point out. For Clinton, they excused him because he was unsure what “is” is. Yet, they take a potentially harmless statement and turn it all around.
Again, this is what Gingrich said, “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,”
I’m not misusing anybody’s statement. I’m simply pointing out the clinical facts behind what Newt said. Let’s look at it:
“partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country” so there he is putting love of country as the motivator for the rest of the sentence
“that I worked too hard” next issue is hard work, hard work that only happened because of his love of country
“and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.” those not appropriate things being doinking women not his wife.
It’s right there in his own words. The cause is at the beginning of the sentence, the effect is at the ends with a side trip through hard work. He cheated on his wife because he loved his country so much. That is what the words he used mean. Period. Any other interpretation is misusing his statement.
Right now, we have candidates who are flawed. Sit it out? Or get rid of obama. Isn’t that our choice? The perfect conservative isn’t our choice. God help us if it’s Romney. But, I’ll take him over Obama, another hold my nose vote.
I haven’t voted ‘for’ a candidate since Reagan.
First, the occupy Walker camp is out in full force, but, if history repeats itself, we’ll come out in full force and vote it down.
Do you understand how sick and tired we are of all this crap going on in our state? Non-politico’s are fed up. People are fed up. The state is fed up. This recall is going to fail. Like everything else.
Tea Party wins in Wisconsin since the Nov 2010 election:
Governor: Tea Party win
Assembly: Tea Party win
Senate: Tea Party win
US Senate seat: Tea Party win
US House 2 seats: Tea Party win
State Supreme Court: Tea Party win
Recount of Supreme Court: Tea Party win
Recall Senate election: Tea Party win
This is what Wisconsin has been fighting for the past year.
When Walker prevails in the end, he’ll be hard to stop.
Even if he loses, so much has been accomplished in this state. The dems won’t have the votes to repeal anything. Do you live here in WI? I’m in the West Bend area.
I live in Texas, but I’ve been very impressed with Governor Walker.
I remember tuning into c-span to watch the vote for Newt as speaker. I was so excited. We had all his history courses videos. Some where along the line, he got sucked into the cocktail party circuit. That’s what’s really got us conservatives miffed. His values could be bought out.
Real conservatives don’t waver on their values. Newt has issues, but he’s not Obama. I’d vote for Newt. Hell, he has more substance than McCain.
Gov Walker is youngish, in his 40’s. He’s in the Paul Ryan mold. And Ryan in youngish, in his 40’s as well. These two are worth keeping your eye on. Wisconsin is putting out some fabulous conservatives. Ron Johnson in the senate for example. And we have state reps and senators in the same mold. My state senator and rep are the same way, but then, I live in the most conservative county in the state.
Our farm team is impressive. The dems are throwing out the idea of Herb Kohl (76 years old) for governor. That’s their team, they have nothing but radicals and no-names.
So, even if they get the petitions for recall, they have NO ONE to run against Walker. Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee, ran against him and lost. Barrett is comfortable being a mayor. He has no fire in his belly, so to speak. He’s not going to set the state on fire. There is no one out there on the dem side that can make this recall happen. It’s really sad we have to go through this AGAIN!
My son-in-law did 5 one year tours, 4 in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan. I can do this.
I think that’s a difference between Texas and Wisconsin....a Republican gets elected here without even trying....but if you are a Republican in Wisconsin, you’d better be good if you want to win.
Think of the socialist history of Wisconsin. That’s a shame. We’re trying to break it with conservativism. Isn’t that something? And we’re winning! I’d LOVE for us to have a Texas history, but we don’t. And citizens of this state LOVE living here. We don’t want the gov to micro manage our lives. We’re in a true battle, gov vs people. The people will win. The national unions are sending all their goons here, the normal people are fed up. FED UP. We are going to send them home. We’re sick and tired of the infiltration. Everyone knows the recall isn’t Wisconsin. Pray for us and help us.
We’re being targeted because Walker was able to derail the choo-choo train BEFORE he was sworn in as Gov. Obama set his goons on WI. This is Obama’s vendetta.
Will the power of the feds trump the states? That’s what we’re fighting.
At least Wisconsin gave us the Tailgunner.
Who said anything about the most recent? You painted with a broad brush and I pointed out that you are an idiot for doing so.
Let’s see serial philander presidents:
Clinton - sold a bunch of secrets to China
Kennedy - got us in a war he didn’t want to win, not to mention almost getting us in WWIII a couple of times
FDR - emperor for life.
My broad brush stands and if there’s an idiot in this conversation it’s the guy that felt the need to throw insults first.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.