The Brits rejected Churchill as well, didn’t they, until it was almost too late for them.
A Churchillian-like figure rarely comes along.
A lot of people can’t deal with one when he or she does appear. They would rather not have powerful figures telling them the way it really is and offer to lead them to a better place.
They instead nibble around the edges and go off on tangents with people who couldn’t think or articulate or lead their way out of a paper bag, but have some little hook that they hook the people with.
Jimmy Carter was one.
Barack Obama is another.
I could go on, but why needlessly insult people who can’t see what’s in front of their faces.
I read on another thread that Newt claimed that people don’t understand him. It was a headline from the national journal, no love lost for Newt there, but is being used to bash him here.
All he said was, the Republicans need to return to big ideas for America, and that he feels frustration that that’s no longer what the Republican party stands for and what he is trying to bring back.
It wasn’t woe is me, it wasn’t about him, it was about our country and what he can do to bring it back, but he is being constrained by almost every force there is out there to use, which we know is the truth.
....“The thing I find most disheartening of this campaign is the difficulty of talking about large ideas on a large scale, because the news media can’t cover it and, candidly, my opponents can’t comprehend it,” Gingrich said, while also vowing to continue his campaign to the convention in Tampa this summer.
He called himself the only candidate of the four still in the contest “focused on ideas and … solutions and not just the usual politics,” and the only one advocating wholesale change to a political system that is “methodically and deliberately stupid.”
Other parts of his speech covered topics ranging from President Lincoln promoting the transcontinental railroad to the antifraud system of the American Express company. Gingrich spoke of the need for a “technological revolution” in government, but he lamented that no one but him seemed to understand that.
“Let me just talk for a second about technology and grand opportunities,” he said. “Other than Ronald Reagan, I know of no Republican in my lifetime who’s been able to talk about this. That’s why I’m still running.”
The former House speaker from Georgia has recently focused his campaign on high gas prices, promising as president to restore them to no more than $2.50 a gallon. But he often also speaks at length on a wide range of topics, covering everything from brain science to space exploration to the need to utilize modern management practices to reform entire sectors of the government.
“I want to be the candidate of science and technology,” he said. “Whether it’s on energy, it’s on stopping crooks in Medicare and Medicaid, it’s on getting into space, which I was ridiculed [for], or it is on helping you make sure that your family doesn’t suffer from something that could be avoided.”
And he chided fellow Republicans for failing to see the need for a party makeover. The GOP, he said, has been governing like the Democratic Party since 2006, when it lost control of the Congress.
“We cannot be a normal party,” he told the suburban Republican crowd. “If we run a normal campaign, trying to govern within the framework of the current system, we have no future, because people would rather have Democrats do it. They at least enjoy it.”
http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-no-one-understands-235621781.html
I hope our home State of Texas can deliver the goods for Newt.
Slight derail:
I am going to say something unpopular. Churchill couldn’t have succeeded without Chamberlain.
When he did that foolish “Peace in our time” thing, he pretty much had to. Our army was ridculously understaffed and under equipped, our airforce was a joke - heck they were still using biplanes! - and our navy was at it’s lowest level since before the Spanish armada.
Everyone remembers the speech. No one remembers that his first act on returning was to throw military production into high gear and start uprating regiments in both personnel and equipment. Something that was only possible thanks to Chamberlain’s insistance on aggressively expanding the British manufacturing base despite the depression.
As a war time PM, Churchill was without peer, and thank God we had him! But the war preps, especially the upgrading of the RAF that was so important to our very survival, was mostly Chamberlain.
Sorry, I seen these two mentioned a couple of times in this thread, and Chamberlain ALWAYS gets no credit.