What is interesting about Newt is that he can explain the complex in very simple terms, with uncommon ease. workers, salt of the earth.
I knew a lot of the folks in that crowd of 350, and they are all kinds of people—farmers, police, factory workers, housewives, professionals, officials, etc.—they had no problem understanding Newt and responding to him.
The real problem lies in breaking through the template the media and the GOP have relentlessly promoted about Newt—the “baggage” if you will—and I think a lot of our folks went for Santorum because he is somehow “cleaner” than Newt-—but Newt is far and away the only one who would be fearless in taking on Obama.
It is up to conservatives in the states that have voted yet to change that direction. Only half the states have held their primaries.
The media wants Newt gone because he is the biggest threat to Obama.
I should explain myself a little more - in making my comments about appeal by IQ, I'm not necessarily speaking about the complexity of what he's saying, particularly, but the basic appeal itself. Smarter people want to live independently of government interference. This is why Santorum doesn't appeal to the higher end of the bell curve. Santorum mostly appeals to people who want, at some fundamental level, for the government to step in and run various aspects of their and other peoples' lives.
The crowds that hear Newt are self-selected. They may come from a broad swathe of society, profession-wise, but they all have one thing in common - they are all smart enough to want to run their own lives instead of having a left-socialist or a right-socialist run them for them.
I knew a lot of the folks in that crowd of 350, and they are all kinds of people—farmers, police, factory workers, housewives, professionals, officials, etc.—they had no problem understanding Newt and responding to him.
The real problem lies in breaking through the template the media and the GOP have relentlessly promoted about Newt—the “baggage” if you will—and I think a lot of our folks went for Santorum because he is somehow “cleaner” than Newt-—but Newt is far and away the only one who would be fearless in taking on Obama.
It is up to conservatives in the states that have voted yet to change that direction. Only half the states have held their primaries."
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Great post "exit82!"
This could clear up the political baggage. God has forgiven Newt his social baggage.
Does Ryan Now Agree with Gingrich? [And now, here's the REST of the story] “There is a perception lingering about NewtGingrich that he was a critic of PaulRyan's budget plan and therefore a critic of conservative fiscal policy in the House of Representatives. Is that conclusion true? Or is it an oversimplification? Like many misconceptions floating around during a heated political season, it is not true. Let's examine the facts.
On April 5, 2011, Representative PaulRyan, the HouseBudgetCommittee chairman, introduced the Republican budget for 2012. Included in that budget was a premium support model for Medicare. This budget was based on a similar plan previously laid out by Ryan called TheRoadmapforAmerica'sFuture. That document had been a RepublicanParty policy call to change the budget and put it on sound fiscal grounds compared to the Democrats' unwillingness to budget at all and tax and spend into infinity. The Harry Reid-run Senate has not passed a budget for over three years, even though they are required to by law.
Gingrich praised the Ryan plan in an article in Human Events on April 13. He called it the most serious attempt by an elected official to rethink our public finances and the modern welfare state in a generation. That is quite a compliment from a former speaker of the House to a current committee chairman. Using a golfing metaphor, Gingrich celebrated the plan, calling it a Ryan "eagle." Is that comparison a negative critique, or is it commendation? One week later, on April 20, Gingrich in the same space heaped more praise on the plan. He compared PaulRyan to PaulRevere, one of our nation's great heroes, and compared the Ryan Medicare plan with his own previous welfare reform. Why would he disparage something he would compare to one of his greatest achievements? Gingrich later said he would have voted for the plan if he had had the opportunity......”
Video: Newt Rips Gore's 'Facts' To Pieces 2009 Newt testifying on Climate Change before Congress.
Jan 24, 2012 - Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent, Washington Examiner: What really happened in the Gingrich ethics case? “The Romney campaign has been hitting Newt Gingrich hard over the 1990s ethics case that resulted in the former Speaker being reprimanded and paying a $300,000 penalty. Before the Iowa caucuses, Romney and his supporting super PAC did serious damage to Gingrich with an ad attacking Gingrich's ethics past. Since then, Romney has made other ads and web videos focusing on the ethics matter, and at the Republican debate in Tampa Monday night, Romney said Gingrich "had to resign in disgrace."
In private conversations, Romney aides often mention the ethics case as part of their larger argument that Gingrich would be unelectable in a race against President Obama.
Given all the attention to the ethics matter, it's worth asking what actually happened back in 1995, 1996, and 1997. The Gingrich case was extraordinarily complex, intensely partisan, and driven in no small way by a personal vendetta on the part of one of Gingrich's former political opponents. It received saturation coverage in the press; a database search of major media outlets revealed more than 10,000 references to Gingrich's ethics problems during the six months leading to his reprimand. It ended with a special counsel hired by the House Ethics Committee holding Gingrich to an astonishingly strict standard of behavior, after which Gingrich in essence pled guilty to two minor offenses. Afterwards, the case was referred to the Internal Revenue Service, which conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter. And then, after it was all over and Gingrich was out of office, the IRS concluded that Gingrich did nothing wrong. After all the struggle, Gingrich was exonerated.
I wrote about the matter at the time, first in a 1995 article about Gingrich's accusers and then in a 1999 piece on the Internal Revenue Service report that cleared Gingrich. (Both pieces were for The American Spectator; I'm drawing on them extensively, but unfortunately neither is available online.)
And here is a good bonus article:
The GE Years: What Made Reagan Reagan [Newt said this book explained Ronald Reagan's leadership]
I knew a lot of the folks in that crowd of 350, and they are all kinds of people—farmers, police, factory workers, housewives, professionals, officials, etc.—they had no problem understanding Newt and responding to him.
The real problem lies in breaking through the template the media and the GOP have relentlessly promoted about Newt—the “baggage” if you will—and I think a lot of our folks went for Santorum because he is somehow “cleaner” than Newt-—but Newt is far and away the only one who would be fearless in taking on Obama.
It is up to conservatives in the states that have voted yet to change that direction. Only half the states have held their primaries.
The media wants Newt gone because he is the biggest threat to Obama.
You are absolutely correct about zeroing in on the real problem: "The real problem lies in breaking through the template the media and the GOP have relentlessly promoted about Newt—the “baggage” if you will—and I think a lot of our folks went for Santorum because he is somehow “cleaner” than Newt..." What the "clean" crowd doesn't realize is that it doesn't matter how clean they are, by the time the media and dems and the DNC get through with our candidate - they are going to have x1 million the baggage Newt has. It won't matter 1 iota if it is real, fabricated or grossly exaggerated. And maybe the cleaner the candidate, the more outrageous they will make it... they have bought this idea and they are totally incorrect and in for a rude and painful awakening.
HAVE A WONDERFUL AND BLESSED EASTER!!