I’m trying to picture the Newt Gingrich victory speech on the night of the Iowa Caucuses. I can’t get past the need for him to have throngs of supporters waving flags in delirious joy while chanting “Newt! Newt! Newt!” That simply isn’t going to happen. Is it?
Or, writ larger, imagine his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Can you do it? I can’t. It still belongs, for me at least, in the unfathomable category, beyond my ability to even conceive.
Something very strange and unanticipated is going to go down. I have no idea what it is, but no one is talking about it right now. If Romney fails, things are going to fly apart and there’s no telling where the pieces will land.
Long ago I predicted Palin would be the nomine, because I saw the base was crazy. But Gingrich?
If Romney fails, we will see things we have never seen in our lives.
It’s unimaginable.
.
Does anybody else get the feeling that Romney is teetering on the edge here? He’s actually decided he needs to fight for Iowa, that he needs to really come out swinging at Gingrich, and possibly that he needs to start engaging with the press. He’s set to bleed a lot of support to Gingrich in particular; folks who would never dream if voting for a Bachmann or a Cain will vote for Newt.
If Mitt implodes, then what? I don’t think it’s a walk for Gingrich because, what the fuck, Newt Gingrich!? But who’s left to fill that void? Huntsman? Paul?
Brokered convention? Jeb Bush?
The early primaries widow the field too much. If you finish lower than second in both Iowa and New Hampshire the money always dries up, and the press ignores you.
I have been part of one campaign than finished third in New Hampshire (Kerrey in ’92). We couldn’t raise money after New Hampshire, and couldn’t get any press attention.
I have also been part of a campaign that won New Hampshire (Hart in ’84). Once we won NH we started winning in place where we had no organization.
Edwards finished second in Iowa, but after NH he couldn’t get money OR attention.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Ask Presidents Huckabee, Gephardt, Harkin, Dole (88) and Bush (80).
The Wall Street Old Guard and the Faux Populists are about to divorce. That’s what’s about to happen. The only question will be, “Who gets the house?” I think the best thing we can hope for is that the Old Guard will win with Romney, and the FP’s, disillusioned, will return to the state of political apathy they were in before the segregationist right morphed into the Christian right.
Or that could happen with a Gingrich nomination and a McGovern-esque embarrassment in November. Either way is fine, as long as its the greedheads who get to keep the GOP band name. If the insurgents complete their takeover of the Republican Party, the greedheads won’t sit on the sideline… they’ll start funding Democrats instead. Evan Bayh Democrats. I would consider this the worst possible outcome.
They will start funding Democrats? Seems to me they already own most of them.
If the insurgents complete their takeover, the greedheads will not sit on the sideline…they will give money to a third party candidate so Obama cannot win in a landslide.
They largely broke for Obama in 2008. They’d go back to him in 2012 if the Republicans nominate someone they don’t feel they can work with. Newt? They can work with him – sometimes. But he might be too erratic (and full of himself) for them.
Jury’s still out. Newt doesn’t have the baggage (from a Wall Street, we-wanna-own-DC standpoint) that McCain did. Gingrich has no philosophical objection to doing what he’s told. He just has no self-discipline about it. He can’t help himself sometimes.
They largely broke for Obama in 2008.
And then he &$%*ed them. I love that.
It’s interesting to look at the FEC reports about donations from the FIRE industry. From about 50/50 in 2008, they went to about 10:1 by the fall of 2010.
Are you at all worried about the idea of Newt as the candidate? It seems like the administration is taking that possibility pretty lightly, that Romney would be a more formidable opponent. I mean we just lived through a George W. presidency.
No one is worried, not as far as I can tell (joe from lowell stated he feared Huckabee and Gingrich the most…not sure why). We just cannot fathom Newt being their nominee.
Why?
1994, that’s why.
Newt Gingrich actually led a large-scale electoral victory effort – and not just one that fizzled. One that put his party into the majority for 12 years.
And he left in shame. Nancy Pelosi today:
He will be destroyed if he wins.
I bet you the Romney campaign is boning up on that subject even as we speak …
Romney’s pretty clean. You’ve got to give him that. He can plausibly go after Gingrich on this.
I made a comment recently about my theory about Romney’s idiotic, transparent, shameless ad misrepresenting Obama quoting McCain: “If we talk about the economy, we lose.”
My theory was that Romney was demonstrating to the Republican base that he’s willing to play dirty to win, just like Newt Gingrich. The Republican base in 2011 really values that.
Maybe Mitt Romney can demonstrate that willingness by going low on Newt Gingrich.
I hope so. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Oh, he’s got gigantic skeletons in the closet. No question. He’s a target-rich environment for an opponent who wants to go negative. Absolutely.
But the man has political accomplishments – George Mitchell’s career, Jim Wright’s career – and he’s a skilled campaigner and message communicator.
So many of the Republicans are no-talent clowns. Even Romney, who looks so plausible as President on paper, and in still photographs, is terrible on the stump.
Newt Gingrich can play this ball game. So can Mike Huckabee.
probably more than anyone in the field. His reticence around the Ryan Medicaire plan was revealing in this regard.
He has baggage. Enourmous baggage. I suspect he knows it won’t matter – this is all about the economy.
The Iowa polling shows him leading, but in the high 20’s. Since 1980, there has never been an Iowa caucus with a leader below 30 this close to the caucus.
This is still very wide open.
I think the WH is ignoring it because it’s unlikely to happen. Gingrich would have to be the first nominee in history to gain the nomination without money or a ground game. Heck, he just opened his first office in IA last week.
On the other hand, the GOP did put Palin on a national ticket (one heartbeat away as they say) and nominated O’Donnell in DE and Angle in NV, so I suppose anything is possible, even a Gingrich nomination.
This narrative does make for some interesting historical harmonies though, doesn’t it? Maybe we’re looking at the high-water mark of the Reagan revolution. Gingrich comes to DC at the onset of Reagan’s ascendance to power, flames out and then returns like the prodigal son in one last effort to push the movement beyond the tipping point. What better historical irony than to have this racist, homophobic, jingoistic movement go down with Gingrich at the lead – at the hands of an African-American incumbent.
It won’t even be 2012 for a month yet.
Gingrich is getting going late, but it’s not like he doesn’t know any Republican activists.
Experience and popular aphorisms both tell us the pieces will not stick to the fan.
My biggest fear if Romney fails is a Huntsman surge.
I was trying to figure out what in this comment made me laugh out loud, and realized I have never seen these two words in such close quarters before.
Thanks!
🙂
Newt’s speech may be as forgettable (or not) as Goldwater’s. But he may say something like “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” which while well intended dooms him.
But there may be another speech next summer, like this one [YOUTUBE]yt1fYSAChxs[/YOUTUBE] that sets the tone years down the road. (or see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs)
They can’t be lost, even among themselves, forever. I just hope it isn’t REALLLLY scary and sanity eventually rules.