Newt is such a classy guy. He divorced his first wife (his high school geometry teacher, who he started dating when he was sixteen years-old) while she was recovering from uterine cancer. Then he dumped his second wife at the same moment she discovered she had multiple sclerosis. But he told her she was a Jaguar and he was leaving her for a Chevrolet (who was twenty-three years his junior), so I guess he was nice about it and all.
But Marianne was having problems of her own. After going to the doctor for a mysterious tingling in her hand, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Early in May, she went out to Ohio for her mother’s birthday. A day and a half went by and Newt didn’t return her calls, which was strange. They always talked every day, often ten times a day, so she was frantic by the time he called to say he needed to talk to her.
“About what?”
He wanted to talk in person, he said.
“I said, ‘No, we need to talk now.’ “
He went quiet.
“There’s somebody else, isn’t there?”
She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?
She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. ” ‘I can’t handle a Jaguar right now.’ He said that many times. ‘All I want is a Chevrolet.’ “
He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.
He’d just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he’d given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.
The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, “How do you give that speech and do what you’re doing?”
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”
Newt is out there saving souls. What does his personal life have to do with anything?
What’s the point in flogging this stuff further? It doesn’t take a shrink to recognize that Newt is a classic sociopath. What more is there to say?
Maybe Boo has stock in 2012 popcorn futures? Can you imagine a primary that has both Newt and The Quittah?
I can almost guarantee that Romney will be in the 2012 primary as a serious candidate. I strongly suspect that Huckabee will as well. Barring some major scandal, I expect both of them to at least throw their hats in the ring and try again.
I can also almost guarantee that Palin will be in the ring as a sideshow candidate – not intending to win, but to shore up her fanbase and make sure she can ride the wingnut gravy train for another four years.
Between the three of them that leaves no oxygen for Newt. Romney has better cred among the moneymen and for what passes for the intelligentsia of the conservative movement. Huckabee gets the evangelical moralist/populists behind him and Palin scoops up the clowncar remnants. All three of them are happily married (shocking for Republicans, I know) and so get to benefit from the “Newt Gingrich is a scoundrel who left his hospitalized wife to take up with his mistress” narrative.
That’s not to say that Newt won’t try to run, but I bet he doesn’t. The only thing that dries up the wingnut gravy train that he rides is abject failure – he doesn’t want to become Alan Keyes you know. And given the three of them there’s no room for Newt to maneuver and the best bet is he goes down in a flaming crash after the first few primaries.
Being a scumbag didn’t stop Rudy from running. Why would it stop Newt? Though I think Newt is just playing people for suckers and filling up his bank account
It’s not that Newt that would stop him from running. It’s because of this:
Rudy actually thought he had a shot at the Presidency – hell I thought Giulianni had a shot at the Presidency until I found out that the man is apparently incredibly lazy and was unwilling to actually campaign for the job and needed to have things handed to.
Newt has to know that he doesn’t have a shot at the Presidency – if he looks like a serious contender he’ll be ripped to shreds in the primaries by his own party members before he even makes it to the general.
I know his ego is vast but he actually has something to lose here – his bank account is fueled by people who take him seriously. Losing a primary run – especially if he loses it in such a way where he comes out pissing off people who currently support his lifestyle – would crimp his style.
So no, Newt won’t seriously run. He’ll have a new book ready to hit stores in time for primary season, he’ll hit the talk show circuit. He’ll hew and haw about answering the “are you going to run” question. He’ll get the other candidates to shmooze with him to try to get his endorsement. He’ll pout if they don’t take whatever pet outrage he wants to sell seriously and lavish attention onto who ever takes up his pet outrage as their personal cause. And then the convention will happen and he’ll pontificate a bit and that will be that – he’ll have locked up his support for another four years and he can continue to be “serious conservative Newt Gingrich” rather than “disgraced former Speaker and failed Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich”.
Nobody wants “failed Presidential candidate” attached to the front of their names (even when they use the euphemistic “former Presidential candidate” instead) – it stinks of failure. Just ask Alan Keyes. Newt doesn’t want to be Alan Keyes – he wants to be a more successful version of Alan Keyes. And failing to take the presidency doesn’t advance that goal.
Rudy actually thought he had a shot at the Presidency – hell I thought Giulianni had a shot at the Presidency until I found out that the man is apparently incredibly lazy and was unwilling to actually campaign for the job and needed to have things handed to.
While Rudy is lazy, and relied on his 9/11 shtick too much, he also suffered from the fact that the more he campaigned, the more people realized how big of an asshole he really was.
I know his ego is vast but he actually has something to lose here – his bank account is fueled by people who take him seriously. Losing a primary run – especially if he loses it in such a way where he comes out pissing off people who currently support his lifestyle – would crimp his style.
Is this the same reason The Quittah won’t run? The problem being that if she doesn’t run in ’12, will she be taken seriously after that?
It’s the same reason, but a different problem. Palin has to run to continue to look serious, but she doesn’t actually need to do better than a “token” showing to stay “serious” in the eyes of her fanbase.
The bar is somewhat lower for Queen Sarah because, well, the bar is lower. Newt appeals to “intellectual conservatives” and Sarah appeals to, um, not intellectual conservatives. So Newt has to fool the “intellectual conservatives” into thinking he’s serious while Sarah needs to fool the “not intellectual conservatives” into thinking she’s serious. Different approaches for different groups. If Newt tries and fails he’ll be abandoned by the “serious conservatives” and that’s the kiss of death for his books and his speaking tours and his gravy train. But if Palin tries and puts on even a semi-decent showing she’ll be embraced by the “not intellectual conservatives” even more tightly. Because it feeds into their perpetual victim narrative just so damn well – Sarah can’t win because the liberal media is out to get her after all. She might even be able to parlay it into a second attempt at a VP slot – god help us all.
The only way it hurts Palin not to run is if she performs so abysmally that even her base can’t help but realize that she can’t be taken seriously. But I’m not sure where that line is when it comes to the perpetual victim narrative. She’d have to do pretty damn bad, I think.
Anyone who thinks Sarah is Presidential material is pretty damn stupid, and yes, I do know people who think she is Presidential material.
Newt appeals to “intellectual” conservatives AND non-intellectual conservatives who don’t understand what he says but trust him as the smartest man in the room.
People are scared, particularly republicans because they’ve been told to be scared and so they will turn their fate over to who they think is the smartest man in the room. And they won’t give a damn about his personal life.
I think Newt has a heck of a lot better shot than Romney, who wears a suit well, or Huckabee, who they would have beer with, simply because people see big problems requiring really smart people to solve.
That all said, I also agree with the poster who says Newt would not risk spoiling his gravytrain by running. That’s rational. But I also see his ego talking him into a run.
I think the attraction of running, for Newt, is less the hopeless prospect of winning than the opportunity to be part of the debates (and the debate). He correctly sees that the GOP has no positive agenda and no new ideas, and he probably thinks he’s the man to fix that problem.
Well he would correct the current GOP stand of being both for and against almost everything except actually governing.
My personal issue is I have a visceral response to him. I get a serious creep factor off him and if I met him in person I would have an irresistible impulse to slap him. I have the same reaction on sight of Rove, Dick Morris, W and Hillary too.
A 12 month campaign of him on the TV every night would likely be more than I could stand