Gingrich 2012
by Mike Kimel
Alex Knapp asks his readers to suggest a campaign slogan for Newt Gingrich. He suggests:
“Gingrich 2012: He will always love America. Unless it gets cancer.”
I suggest this:
“Cheating out of love for America”
But speaking seriously – how strong of a contender do you think Newt is for the Republican nomination?
a horrible candidate
Veep? 60/40. Prez? 25/75. Listen to what he says, and you’ll understand, but that will be impossible with the demonizing, some shown here, that will follow yesterday’s announcement.
Obama’s chances? 45/55. Watch what he does and ignore what he says. If his speeches continue as bulwarks to save/collect votes from his base, then his chances drop. His campaign is starting by reinforcing his shallow base. Watch for how long that continues.
Veep? 60/40. Prez? 25/75. Listen to what he says, and you’ll understand, but that will be impossible with the demonizing, some shown here, that will follow yesterday’s announcement.
Obama’s chances? 45/55. Watch what he does and ignore what he says. If his speeches continue as bulwarks to save/collect votes from his base, then his chances drop. His campaign is starting by reinforcing his shallow base. Watch for how long that continues. If it is still required after the Republican leaders are defined, then he is in serious trouble.
His record has little to recommend him as successful. His successes will mostly be pointed out as extensions to Bush policies. Running on HealthCare is a loser and potentially very dangerous as the court may rule just before the election. Osama will be a faded memory. The economy will not turn fast enough. Employment improvement will continue, but slowly. More proposals to give away (redistribute) more borrowed spending will be counter-productive, and might cause the deficit to very well blow up in the next FY. Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan are politically insignificant.
That leaves his banking and Wall Street reforms which affect too few to add political traction.
Any other thoughts from the AB gang?
Why? In what way? Cryptic reponses add little value.
Evaluating Gingrich as a viable candidate requires using the same metric you’d apply to any other. Can he raise billions of dollars? Newt Inc. is still a powerful brand. He still takes calls from talking head show bookers. He hasn’t alienated key blocs of wealthy elite donors. He’s at least as viable as perennial candidate Mitt Romney by this standard. Dum dum dum!
AS, good point!
By that standard, Hayley Barbour should be running. He ran the money, knows where the money is, and knows where the bodies are buried.
But he’s not.
Gingrich running is amusing; a man known for tantrums and divorces who couldn’t lead his own Party for four years.
If he gets anywhere–and my money, if I had any, would still be on Mitch Daniels as the nominee, with Barbour or Huckabee as VP–a Gingrich nomination would make 2012 look like 1996 all over again.
I probably should have clarified the difference between viability and likelihood of success. He can and probably will raise hundreds of millions but will not get the nomination. Like Romney has has the stink of political failure and opportunism on him that even the Tea bag types can detect.
The nomination will be eventually won by a “moderate” who is acceptable to the Barbour/”Turdblossom” (Karl Rove) faction. CoRev’s delusional fantasies of Obama’s unpopularity aside, they understand they will need a credible candidate to be competitive and most of the current batch fail that test. If not Daniels it will be some other elder statesman who makes the cut. I love imagining Jeb Bush or Rick Perry in that role but they are already over on the national stage.
Please explain: “ CoRev’s delusional fantasies of Obama’s unpopularity aside,…”, especially in light of not using the word popularity, and clearly was talking about policies and not the person.
Mike,
Personally I give old Newt less than a 5% shot of being the Rep. nominee for P OR VP. Just not going to happen, but if it does I think Obama and the Commette to Re-elect the President should send a few cases of Crystal to the RNC with a big ‘Thank You’ attached. It would be a landslide for Obama.
The weakness of the R field, especially the big names, are the only thing that will save Obama. I consider a replay of the 1996 election to be a real posibility of the R’s don’t get their act together. Obama is very vulnerable and is no longer the blank slate that he was in 2008. But the R’s need a viable challenger or its moot.
People I think have no viability to beat Obama – Gingrich, Palin, Romney, Perry, or Huckabee. Reps need new blood at the top of the ticket. Mitch Daniels would be a viable choice as would Pawlenty. Huckabee may be a good VP choice as a bone for the religous right. R’s biggest strength will be running on Obama’s record – something they couldn’t in 2008 since he didn’t have one.
I do have some sympathey on Huckabee since I found out that when the governor’s mansion was destroyed he lived in a double-wide while it was being rebuilt to save the state tax-payers funds. He actually backed up his fiscal policy when it counted (as oppossed to Rick Perry).
I expect the Rs to have a decent chance to retake the Senate and will hold the house. So we will have split government if Obama wins and most likely even if he loses.
I have noticed that the calls to primary Obama from the left have all died down. A Dem primary challenge would almost garentee a R President and would probably be the only chance a Palin or Gingrich could win – 1968 redux. It would be a wild next two years but I don’t see it happening.
Islam will change
Crossed paths in coach on a flight to Atlanta 20 years ago.
He does well in person, but 20 years changes the face a lot.
Today, he looks like Teddy Kennedy.
Prepare for the most “unlikely contingencies”, with the most expensive stuff.
Newt is a perfect guy for the thinktank and speaking circuit, he can spin out interesting ideas at the speed of light, which i think helps the discussion.
President? No way.
(Will he campaign with wife #3 or the future wife #4 – sarcasm of course)
Hey cmon he’s a rich republican of national prominence. Why would anybody force him to choose?
There are several mentions of money, but evidence that money deterimines who makes it through the early primaries is scant. Evidence that money matters past a certain threshold is also scant.
The early primaries tend to winnow the field, so what needs to be known is who is best organized in the early primary states, who has the best name recognition in the early states and whose views – or recent views, in the case of Romney – match up best with GOP primary voters in the early states. I don’t actually know the answers to those questions, but those seem to me more important to who will take the nomination than who raises money best. Is there a shortage of money in politics these days, relative to other resources one needs?
Road kill.
Contract on America and his “do as I say, not do as I do” will make sure of that.
Gingrich is clearly a smart person that can effectively explain his ideas. But that person left the stage years ago. Now, he is a joke — reducing his ideas to the basest level of the Right (anti-Muslim, socialism, vague Birtherism). To think Republicans would nominate someone so flawed is testament to how awful their current field is.
If he returns to cerebral issues and a true Conservative appeal, he might get a bit of traction. I don’t see it.
CoRev
The post from Kimmel asked, “But speaking seriously – how strong of a contender do you think Newt is for the Republican nomination?” Your comment is about 80% on Obama’s chances. What’s up with that? Another carom shot to divert the conversation away from a distasteful, to you, topic?
Who here knows that Newt’s first wife, Y’ano the one who was supposed to be told on her death bed, that he wanted a divorce, is alive today? Just another urban legend.
I read an article by his daughter from his first marrage. I was impressed. Seems the acorn has fallen very far from the tree. Not far from her mom’s tree however. Seems the divorce was going forward before the cancer.
Seems she never had cancer either. The tumor was benign.
My father, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, has been in politics as long as I can remember.
And as long as I can remember, media coverage about him has contained misstatements of facts. The vast majority are simple mistakes that are easily corrected, understood and rewoven into an ongoing storyline.
But one of them seems to have taken on a life of its own, and simple corrections have not sufficed to set the record straight. Why does this happen? I can’t be sure, but I suspect that the narrative created by these untruths proves to be so much more compelling and more dramatic than what actually happened that it proves irresistible.
Why does this happen? Sorry Jackie, but there is another explanation….
http://www.creators.com/conservative/jackie-gingrich-cushman/setting-the-record-straight.html
Newt, like a few others, has found that ‘running’ is a way to make a prettty good living. He’s just another misunderstood right wing sociopath.
CoRev & Sammy,
Ummm… Did you not read the second link in the post? Newt admitted to cheating on both his first and second wives. That usually makes it tough to get the religious vote which is the backbone of the conservative movement. Cancer or no cancer, Newt has not proven himself to be a faithful guy.