I think Newt is toast - it will just take a while for it to sink in like it did with Herman Cain. If Newt does get the nomination we can look forward to:
#1: Getting very little of the once jilted women vote (which is a pretty big chunk of women in general)
#2: Seeing the nominee abandoned by the value voter leaders OR (and I argue worse) seeing them try to spin this behavior
#3: See BHO being able to credibly claim the moral high ground for family issues (it wont be gentle like Paul, Romney, and Santorum were last night)
#4: When it’s all done, the moderate wing of the party will be able to say “You got the conservative candidate and we lost in a landslide”
I know I should bow down and hail Newt as the “master debater” that he is but you can’t debate your way out of slimy. Also, if Newt was a master debater would not have called his ex a liar and used the “regret” question to apologize for any and all pain he might have caused his ex’s. Instead, he stood proud as the smartest man in the room and I’m quite sure we’ll be hearing from his ex and her side of the family friends in the coming days and weeks.
He's right.
Nominating Newt Gingrich puts evangelical Christians in a position where we have to defend a man whose conduct is as bad if not worse than that of Bill Clinton, and explain to our members why we should vote for an admitted serial adulterer who is accused of wanting an “open marriage” when the Democrat appears to have a stable family life.
It also causes serious problems for conservative Roman Catholics who object to loose standards in the church for annulments and lack of church discipline in other ways, and then have to defend toleration by the church of what appears to be grossly immoral conduct by Newt Gingrich. I realize that the confessional involves strict secrecy in the Roman Catholic Church, but that's not going to help conservative Catholics who object to latitudinarian priests and bishops while defending Gingrich. The “cognitive dissonance” will be very hard to explain to average parishioners, let alone those outside who are always ready to jump on the church a bunch of hypocrites.
But we have an even worse problem in the conservative movement, no matter whether Gingrich wins or loses.
Frankly, I can't imagine where the Freepers are coming from who are saying this won't make a lot of difference to voters and are claiming that an open marriage is what every man wants. This website is not the Daily Kos or Huffington Post. I expect that kind of stuff on liberal blogs. But has the conservative movement **ALREADY** gotten as bad as conservative parties in Europe where sex scandals aren't even scandalous anymore unless it's the Italian prime minister accused of bedding underage girls?
If the people saying those things on Free Republic are real conservatives — and I believe many of them are real conservatives, not liberal fakes and agitators — we have a big problem in our own conservative ranks.
We're talking basic fundamental morality here, folks, not whether someone has made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Lots of non-Christians and lots of nominal Christians believe in marriage and moral values, or at least oppose adultery.
This should be a major concern not just to “social conservatives” or “values voters” but to **EVERYONE** who calls themselves a conservative of any sort.
Herman Cain had the good grace to get out when confronted with accusations he said were bogus. We don't know what happened in private between him and his wife, but I think Cain did the right thing — if he had won the Republican nomination without proving that the accusers were liars, it would have caused major damage to the Republican Party.
I think we need to think very hard about what happens if Gingrich wins the nomination. The consequences of that are not going to be pretty.