I don’t know how much I’ve written about it, but those that attend the Philly Drinking Liberally chapter have heard me pontificating on why Newt Gingrich will be the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee. Now the Wall Street Journal agrees with me:
GINGRICH EMERGES as top conservative prospect for Republican 2008 field.
Ebbing fortunes of Santorum, Allen and Frist leave opening for architect of Republicans’ 1994 sweep. Gingrich faults Bush for “very disturbing” post-election news conference, saying earlier replacement of Rumsfeld might have saved control of the Senate and 10 House seats.
“He can win some primaries,” says Bush ad-maker Mark McKinnon, now with 2008 front-runner McCain. Anti-Washington mood helps departing Arkansas Gov. Huckabee compete with Kansas Sen. Brownback in wooing religious right.
Now, you might say, “But, BooMan, didn’t he break-up with his wife while she was suffering from cancer? Didn’t he leave his next wife for one of his assistants? Didn’t he have ethical problems and get rebuked by the House Ethics panel?” Yeah, he did all that. And it doesn’t matter because he is a Republican. He just has to lean on Jesus a little and change the subject. I can’t imagine another Republican even bringing that stuff up a primary.
Newt is going to be in a showdown with McCain and Hagel. I could be wrong, but I think McCain and Hagel appeal to the same types of Republicans. They also appeal to independents. If they split those votes, Newt could wind up winning the nomination. And in any Newt/Hillary showdown, someone would have to win. My money would be on Hillary.
That’s not a choice that I want to make. America can do a lot better than that.
That really smarts! I think what you’re saying is how important it is that we do everything we can to get a better choice than Hil nominated. Couldn’t agree more.
On Edwards, on Gore! On Feinstein and more!
Agreed.
Click the link in my sig to join the movement to draft Russ if you haven’t already!
Actually…in my humble opinion, the nomination of Newton LeRoy Gingrich, who was forced to resign in disgrace as Speaker of the House (hmmm….that would make a good everyday talking point) would be one of the best things to happen to Democrats. In addition to leaving in disgrace, he was not very popular with the American electorate and has a pretty abrasive personality. He does throw around epithets against those he doesn’t like and he sort of helped the Republican party perfect their new art of injecting…childish name-calling…into the national political debate. And, he has been effective at demonizing his opponents.
He also was the chief architect of the failed Republican Contract on America, which republicans never got around to living up to anyway. And he has made major political gaffes.
It seems to me that there are few candidates that Hillary would like to run against more than Newton LeRoy Gingrich. He is a parody of himself and scary. It would not be hard to paint oneself as a reasonable pragmatist running against him. All you’d have to do is stand there…and let him open his mouth.
What do I have to do to get the GOP to make a catastrophic screw up like nominating Newt? Are there any petitions I can sign to expedite that?
The two Republicans I’m worried about are Frist and Giuliani.
-Frist is a mad scientist, but Frist was intelligent enough to get through med school and a surgical rotation. That’s a big problem.
-Giuliani is the only non-extremist / “Bush 41 school” Republican the GOP base might support. The base will never nominate McCain or Romney. Romney didn’t line up the MA Nat’l Guard in front of courthouses and gun down any gay couples that tried to get married, so he has no chance. McCain has been known to have conversations with Democrats that don’t include obscenities or threats of violence. That rules him out.
I think Frist is done. The downfall of conservatism not only happened on his watch, he was there pushing it over the cliff with stupid legislator tricks like misdiagnosing Terry Schiavo from a distance.
Guliani is a possibility. McCain, I don’t know. Romney is extremely doubtful; it appears that the national electorate is extremely uneasy with the idea of a Mormon running the country. (This according to an analysis quoted on Big Orange yesterday.)
Honestly I don’t know who should be on the list of “Republicans we should worry about winning the election should they be nominated.” It’ll probably be someone completely out of left field that we’d never have expected — like a governor from a Southern state or something.
Frist is not ranting idiot like Dubya, Allen or Santorum. His family has raped and pillaged the health care system for billions. Bill Frist was smart enough to get through med school and become a surgeon.
Bill Frist might be evil, but he’s an evil genius, and he has unlimited funds to support a campaign for President. Bill Frist is by far the greatest threat to the Democratic Party. You underestimate him at your own peril.
Look, I don’t disagree that he’s dangerous, but we have lots of ammunition to hit him with if he does decide to run. I just don’t think he’s that big a threat — but we should still keep our eyes on him, just in case.
Just because he’s smart doesn’t mean he’s going to be successful.
I’m just re-stating that Frist isn’t just smart. He’s smart, and he has unlimited funds to produce any kind of image he wants to produce.
Every time Bill Frist tries to lift his head up, we need to unload on him with a barrage to pin him right back down again.
Bill Frist must not be allowed any maneuvering room to recover lost momentum. Matter of fact, an investigation into Hospital Corporation of America Medicare billing practices would be very helpful right now. Hospital Corporation of America has always been crooked. They were already busted for the biggest Medicare fraud fine in US history. It’s about time to take another look at HCA. You know HCA has to be elbow deep in Medicare fraud all over again.
Nothin’ to argue with there. Like the man says, when your opponent is drowning, throw the son-of-a-bitch an anvil. I’m all in favor of going into the anvil business on all of these guys, and Frist is a good place to start.
Some of us netroot types might have to give it a bit of a push, though. I kinda wonder whether they won’t center their investigations on current players in the game and not focus so hard on those who are out of the picture at the moment (e.g. Frist). So it might be time for the netroots to start turning the crank, hint hint. (Now that I think about it, the “they” I’m thinking of is committees like Judiciary and Ethics. Whoever becomes chair of the committee overseeing Medicare, that’s probably the person to start faxing and calling.)
“John David Dingell, Jr. (born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 8, 1926) is a United States Representative from Michigan and is currently the Dean (longest-serving member) of the House of Representatives. He is soon to be the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dingell
“…The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has developed what is arguably the broadest (non-tax-oriented) jurisdiction of any Congressional committee. Today, it maintains principal responsibility for legislative oversight relating to telecommunications, consumer protection, food and drug safety, public health, air quality and environmental health, the supply and delivery of energy, and interstate and foreign commerce in general. This jurisdiction extends over five Cabinet-level departments and seven independent agencies–from the Energy Department, Health and Human Services, the Transportation Department to the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, and Federal Communications Commission — and sundry quasi-governmental organizations….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_and_Commerce_Committee
Cool. He’s going to be hearing from me anyway, because he’ll be overseeing some of my pet concerns (mostly technology-related).
Ask anyone who is familiar with Giuliani’s policies while he was at the Justice Department or Mayor of New York City and you would find out that Giuliani is as far right, law and order, civil liberties smashing as one could possibly get. Bush41 is a flaming liberal compared to Giuliani. Be worried about Giuliani. Worried that he would use a (real or threatened) terror attack as a reason to declare a dictatorship. This is the man who wanted to close museums because he didn’t like the art, let Haitians die at sea because he didn’t think the Haitian government wasn’t sufficient repressive enough for them to get asylum, arrest thousands of innocent bystanders in ‘quality of life sweeps’ throughout the city, wanted to suspend the City Charter so that he could remain in office past his term, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you think Giuliani is ‘non-extreme,’ it’s can only be because you don’t know about him, or have a very limited criteria (abortion, gay rights) by which you judge extremism.
The architect of the now-failed 1994 sweep as the leading prospect? With his baggage and the recent election, he’s not only going to have to lean hard on Jesus, he’ll need to sit on him. I still believe that McCain will cast a wider “appeal” without the need to remake his image. Newt will need to work much harder to achieve the same result. And yes, I suspect that McCain will likely do what the party wants so that he can get the slot.
We all know McCain has appeal outside the GOP base, but he has no appeal within the GOP base. McCain isn’t belligerent enough for them. What we see as an ability to “play well with others, the base sees as weakness. Giuliani, on the other hand, is enough of a belligerant ass that the base will tolerate him being a wee-bit “LiB-RUHL.”
Newt will make it a contest, but I suspect the ticket will be McCain-Huckabee. McCain for the same reasons Kerry was nominated – they’ll be desperate for a “winner,” especially since the right seems obsessed with the notion that Hillary will be our nominee. To increase his palatability to the base he’ll make an “unofficial off the record offer” to Huckabee (or someone cut from similar cloth) who will “leak it.”
Even if other candidates don’t bring up Newt’s skeletons in the primaries, you know the press will. Newt even believes in evolution, IIRC. (I recall seeing a story that he has a fossil collection…)
Clinton was President for 8 years. They were far more desperate for a winner in 2000. Who did the GOP base select? Dubya over McCain.
The GOP base will NEVER nominate McCain. NEVER EVER. All the people that might have nominated McCain in previous decades have abandoned the GOP. All the GOP has left is the party base. The party base thinks they lost because they weren’t conservative enough. Those extremists will never support anything but another bullying ass.
Ok, I have no idea who is going to be the presidential nominee. None. Next year we’ll have better info, but for right now, it’s just an interesting exercise.
But as for Newt, no way. He’ll open his mouth too wide and fall right in. He does it to himself every time, so why on earth should we think he’s changed?
Besides, we now have the splendiferous netroots to catalog all his past and present sayings to post on YouTube. Really, it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.
McCain is the frontrunner now, but I don’t think he’s going to make it all the way. Too old, too sick, too much pandering.
Frist is tarred with poor Mrs. Schiavo. Never happen.
Guliani, Huckabee, maybe. The base wants Sam Brownback or maybe even Santorum. Gives me the willies just thinking about them.
Green Party, start packin’ for the White House!
I can’t wait to see all the interviews with his ex-wives talking about how family-value oriented Newt is. There is no better symbol for the hypocrite party than Gingrich. If this is the best they can do, even Kerry would have a chance of winning.
But, BooMan, didn’t he break-up with his wife while she was suffering from cancer?
Even more than that, the only reason he visited his sick wife in the hospital was to give her divorce papers. It’s one of those tiny little details that makes conservative potential voters cringe in disgust.
Not to mention that he was cheating on wife #1 with wife #2 for several years before the divorce and cheating on wife #2 with wife #3 for half a decade before their divorce. You think Clinton caught hell for infidelity, at least he’s still married to his first wife. The one thing you can say with reasonable certainty about Newt based on his history is that he has been sleeping with the future 4th Mrs. Gingrich for years already.
Feingold’s unelectable because of his divorces…proof that IOKIYAR…
Hagel, IMO has more integrity than all of them. Which is probably why he’ll never get it. I believe he has the confidence of Anthony Zinni.
I actually find Newt to be one of the more reasoned Republicans in recent political history. Hold on now. What I mean is that although I disagree with his ideology, Speaker Newt Gingrich presented his ideas in a very cogent, straightforward manner and provided a clear contrast with his political opponents. Whether or not you like him, some parts of the Contract with America were positive measures (dare I say progressive) by which government should function. In a way, a Newt Gingrich candidacy would prevent both the best opportunity and the greatest peril for the Democrats. The best opportunity because Gingrich is someone who has been successfully vilified among a large part of the public. A Gingrich candidacy also neutralizes the role of the Moral Majority’s crowd as they don’t like Newt either. I actually think a Gingrich candidacy is the Clintons’ secret strategy. Newt however presents the greatest peril because, of all the GOP potential candidates, Gingrich has proven to be the best one at putting together an easy to understand set of issues on which he can successfully campaign and gain the support of the American people.
So if that’s the case we should take those progressive ideas and implement them (or at least come out strongly in favor of them) before he ever has a chance to gain traction. “Oh, well Newt’s proposal of $IDEA is such a good one, the Democrats have advocated it since we introduced $LEGISLATION back in 2007.”
He seems to make more sense than many other Republicans (at least on the surface), but if you think through what he says there’s not as much real common sense as may first appear.
My take: Gingrich is a very effective communicator, and has even helped the Republican party, in the past, with develop a lexicon to help their cause. However, a lot of the lexicon he developed…has worn thin.
Gingrich is a good communicator and demonizer; however, a smart politician (i.e. Bill and Hillary Clinton) could easily expose his significant other areas of vulnerability and exploit those quite easily.
While Hillary’s not my first choice for president, the fact that she has the “added ammunition” of Bill Clinton as a key political strategist (and potential key consultant should she win) is still a major advantage, no matter how you slice it. Don’t be surprised to hear them resurrect their “Get two for the price of one” sub-theme, which they used somewhat effectively during the 1992 campaign.