Newt Gingrich for President!

[Ritty77]

Newt Highlights From Full 90 Minute National Journal/CBS Debate

[philunderwood]

If Newt can keep from making any more dumb mistakes, he should be a shoe in.

I’d love to watch him debate Obama.

[leisuresuitlarry]

I sometimes forget how much I like Newt.

[philunderwood]

althouse.blogspot.com/2011/11/theres-something-i-like-about-newt.html

Comments on the clip above:

Althouse
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November 13, 2011
There's something I like about Newt Gingrich.

He reminds me of a law professor....



Most of the candidates will listen to a question and then answer some question they wish they'd been asked. This is a standard approach to answering questions on television. It's a way to avoid letting the questioner control you, and you create an opportunity to say what you want to say.

That's not what Newt does. He listens to the precise question asked and examines it, then works out, before our eyes, what is wrong with that question and what the real issue is. He has a depth of understanding and flexibility of mind that allows him to do that, he cares about doing that accurately and well, and he has the style to want to perform reasoning for us. I like that. I try to do that all the time in class, and I know how hard it is, what presence of mind and grasp of the material it takes.

For example, in that little clip, the moderator Scott Pelley asks:

As president of the United States, would you sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas who you believe is a terrorist suspect?
Pelley has framed a yes-or-know question, and instead of saying "yes" (or "absolutely" as Mitt Romney just did), Newt says:

Well, he's not a terrorist suspect. He's a person who was found guilty under review of actively seeking the death of Americans.
Newt says that in a puzzled and slightly peeved way that creates drama about whether he might be confused or combative. It puts us on edge. And Pelley is now required to speak again. Newt didn't launch into a lecture. He even ceded some time to Pelley, who says:

Not found guilty by a court, sir.
Gingrich doles out a dollop of information:

He was found guilty by a panel that looked at it and reported to the president.
Pelley is now put in the role of the student in a dialogue:

Well, that's extrajudicial. (CROSSTALK) It's not the rule of law. (APPLAUSE)
Look at Pelley at this point — 0:32 — he's smiling and glowing, thinking (perhaps) that he's doing well in class, and the audience applauds for him. Gingrich swoops in:

It is the rule of law. That is explicitly false. It is the rule of law. If you engage in war against the United States, you are an enemy combatant. You have none of the civil liberties of the United States. You cannot go to court.
Now, the applause is for Newt. The dramatic moment has happened, and now the professor makes it all very clear with an instant, crisp mini-lecture on the dimensions of the rule of law:

No, let me be -- let me be very clear about this on two levels. There is a huge gap here that, frankly, far too many people get confused over. Civil defense, criminal defense is a function of being within the American law. Waging war on the United States is outside criminal law. It is an act of war and should be dealt with as an act of war, and the correct thing in an act of war is to kill people who are trying to kill you.
There's more applause. We hear one of the other candidates say "Well said. Well said." I think it was Mitt — Mitt, who had just been asked the same question. Mitt answered the question clearly and cleanly. ("If there's someone
that's going to join with a group like Al Qaida that declares war on America,
and we're in a war with that entity, then, of course, anyone who is
bearing arms with that entity is fair game for the United States of America.") Credit to Mitt for openly admiring the style and substance of Professor Gingrich.

[Ritty77]

Dan Rather: Newt Gingrich is as dangerous as a wounded woverine

[philunderwood]

Newt's wonkish, unconventional campaign

By Byron York

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

DES MOINES, IOWA -- On Nov. 4, at precisely the moment Herman Cain was basking in applause at a conservative activists' gathering in Washington, D.C., Newt Gingrich was in a small conference room at the Marriott Hotel here discussing cognitive illness with three brain scientists.

"What I am trying to do is initiate the idea that solving health problems is the best way to reduce costs," Gingrich begins. Look at polio, he says. What if it had not been cured? What if one took the high cost of treating polio in 1950 and simply projected it through 2011? The numbers would be enormous. Without even considering the human benefits, curing polio was far, far cheaper than treating it over decades.

Now Gingrich wants to approach Alzheimer's and other brain disorders the same way. "The scale of brain-related problems is so large and so unreported," he tells the scientists, "that if you think of the supercommittee right now, for example -- they're trying to find $1.5 trillion (in savings) over 10 years. The projection the Alzheimer's Foundation gave me was that Alzheimer's alone could cost $20 trillion in public and private funds between now and 2050." Spending billions on curing Alzheimer's -- sums Congress would never approve in today's political atmosphere -- could save astonishing amounts of money in the long run.

It's the kind of wide-ranging and wonkish discussion Gingrich is known for. Indeed, the former speaker of the House, whose mother spent the last years of her life in a long-term care facility, has devoted a lot of time over the years working on Alzheimer's issues. But now he is in the middle of a presidential campaign. He's in Iowa, with 60 days to go before the caucuses that could decide his future. He is hours away from a crucial speech at the Iowa Republican Party's annual Reagan dinner. And he is spending nearly two hours of his day behind closed doors with three doctors, a couple of aides and one reporter talking about brain research. The topic of the approaching caucuses does not come up.

Gingrich often says he is running an unconventional campaign. Republicans here in Iowa would probably agree, since they don't see him all that much at traditional stump events. But most have no idea just how unconventional the Gingrich campaign really is.

On this day, Gingrich's plan is to integrate his longtime interest in health issues, and in particular brain research, into his appeal to voters. In an interview after the session, Gingrich says he wants to reach "everybody who's worried about Alzheimer's -- and over 55 years of age, it is a more common fear than cancer."

Here in Iowa, the organization Iowa Against Alzheimer's estimates there are 69,000 people over the age of 65 with the disease. Take their spouses and children and relatives and friends -- along with other people so far unaffected by the disease but worried about it -- and you've got a very large group. They vote, and Gingrich wants to reach them.

Gingrich has test-run the idea in a few recent public forums here and in other early voting states.

"In South Carolina, a tea party leader walked up and said, 'My dad died three years ago with Alzheimer's, and I understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish,'" Gingrich says. "People can have a checklist in their head that says on these things, Newt Gingrich understands my world and is trying to make it better." Gingrich plans to work the message into his speeches and discussions with voters more often as voting approaches.

Whatever Gingrich is doing these days, it's working. Thanks in part to impressive performances in several GOP debates, he is moving up in the polls, both nationally and in key early states. He's raising money again after a meltdown -- a massive staff defection and damaging stories about big-spending habits at Tiffany -- that nearly killed his campaign a few months ago. And voters appear to appreciate his sticking with it. In discussions across Iowa in the last week, it is striking how many voters volunteer Gingrich's name as someone they're finding more and more appealing. If either of the current front-runners, Herman Cain or Mitt Romney, were to falter, Gingrich is in a position to benefit greatly.

And he's doing it his own way. Which other candidate would take a large part of a critical day to talk science when the campaign trail beckons, with local officials to meet and hands to shake?

"We'll see if it works," Gingrich says with a laugh. "It's a great experiment."

[philunderwood]

In Debates, Newt Gingrich's Real Target Is Obama

By Jonah Goldberg

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

He's baaack!

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is back in the saddle after falling off his horse at the starting line. At least according to one poll (Public Policy Polling), Gingrich is actually the GOP front-runner.

Many say it's simply Gingrich's turn to be the not-Mitt contender, now that Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have had their chances.

But that's not entirely fair. Gingrich has been relentlessly seducing GOP voters in the debates. Romney may have been winning on points and technicalities, but Gingrich has been consistently winning the crowds.

Moreover, he's been deftly using the debates to develop a sales pitch to GOP voters. His Reaganesque refusal to attack fellow Republicans has been appreciated, as has his more mercenary determination to ridicule the media by pouncing on stupid -- and sometimes not-so-stupid -- questions from debate moderators.

But the core of his strategy has been to plant a question in the minds of Republican voters. The question he wants them to ask is, "Whom would you most like to see debate Barack Obama?"

In each debate, he keeps mentioning how he wants to challenge the president to as many Lincoln-Douglas-style debates as possible. And if the presidential baloney won't march into the Gingrichian grinder? Well then, the grinder will come to the baloney. Gingrich vows to follow Obama on the stump, offering rapid response after every presidential utterance.

It's a brilliant tactic. Watching Gingrich walk onto the debate stage, it's like seeing a great beast returned to its natural habitat. They should play "Born Free" whenever he comes out from behind the curtain.

The tactic works because the unifying conviction among hard-core Republican voters is that Obama is both overrated and full of it, a man pretending to be presidential and intellectual rather than the real thing. (Ironically, Gingrich has long been the subject of similar criticisms, mostly from the left.) Gingrich's promise to goad Obama into a fair fight is beyond tantalizing.

Talk to rank-and-file conservatives about such a matchup and they grow giddy, like nerds asked if they'd like to see a battle between Darth Vader and Gandalf the wizard. Ask them if they'd like to see an Obama versus Romney debate (the thrilla with vanilla!) and they shrug. Meanwhile, if you nominate Gingrich, you'll get a ticket to the fight of the century.

The risk for Gingrich is that primary voters may eventually recognize what he's up to. After all, as a purely practical matter, the point of picking a Republican nominee isn't to find the candidate who can beat Obama in a debate but to pick the nominee who can beat Obama in an election (oh, and be a good president too, a worthy subject for another day). Winning debates is great and important -- as Perry has painfully learned -- but they are a means to an end, not an end unto themselves.

It's an open question whether Gingrich can defeat Obama in 2012. It's taken as a truism that he has "too much baggage." Well, some of the baggage is lighter than it appears. He was cleared by the Clinton-era Internal Revenue Service of wrongdoing in alleged ethics violations stemming from a college course he taught in the 1990s. The charge that he surprised his cancer-stricken first wife with divorce papers has been, at the least, exaggerated.

But, as with Kim Kardashian's attic, you can throw away a lot of old baggage and still be left with too much for one person to carry. His marital infidelities, his verbal indiscipline, the strange mix of God and Mammon that is Newt Inc., and his grandiose way of talking about himself as one of the lions of the 20th -- and now 21st -- century: It may just be too much muchness for voters once they're reminded of it all. And, oh boy, would they be reminded of it if Gingrich got the nomination.

On the other hand, this could be Gingrich's moment. Perry was undone by the debates because voters understand that the only way to beat Obama is to take the argument to him, particularly because -- from a Republican perspective at least -- the mainstream media has little interest in holding Obama accountable.

Maybe it is time to cue "Born Free."

[Ritty77]

For President, Newt Gingrich
By Joseph W. McQuaid
New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher
Published Nov 27, 2011


This newspaper endorses Newt Gingrich in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary.

America is at a crucial crossroads. It is not going to be enough to merely replace Barack Obama next year. We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing.

He did so with the Contract with America. He did it in bringing in the first Republican House in 40 years and by forging balanced budgets and even a surplus despite the political challenge of dealing with a Democratic President. A lot of candidates say they're going to improve Washington. Newt Gingrich has actually done that, and in this race he offers the best shot of doing it again.

We sympathize with the many people we have heard from, both here and across the country, who remain unsure of their choice this close to the primary. It is understandable. Our nation is in peril, yet much of the attention has been focused on fluff, silliness and each candidate's minor miscues.

Truth be known, many in the liberal media are belittling the Republican candidates because they don't want any of them to be taken as a serious challenger to their man, Obama.

Readers of the Union Leader and Sunday News know that we don't back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers. We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job.

We don't have to agree with them on every issue. We would rather back someone with whom we may sometimes disagree than one who tells us what he thinks we want to hear.

Newt Gingrich is by no means the perfect candidate. But Republican primary voters too often make the mistake of preferring an unattainable ideal to the best candidate who is actually running. In this incredibly important election, that candidate is Newt Gingrich. He has the experience, the leadership qualities and the vision to lead this country in these trying times. He is worthy of your support on January 10.

[Ritty77]

Sean Hannity asks Newt Gingrich:

SEAN: You've said that if you're elected, you will begin work almost immediately. Explain that a little bit.

NEWT: Within two hours of the end of my inaugural speech, I will sign between one- and two-hundred executive orders. Among the first will be to eliminate all czar positions, for example. Listen, the plan is that by the time Obama touches down in Chicago, we will have dismantled forty percent of his government.

I got chills.

GO NEWT!

[leisuresuitlarry]

It's nice to hear statements like that:

"Within two hours of the end of my inaugural speech, I will sign between one- and two-hundred executive orders. Among the first will be to eliminate all czar positions, for example. Listen, the plan is that by the time Obama touches down in Chicago, we will have dismantled forty percent of his government."

Be even nicer if it comes true.

[twinder]

I, for the life of me, cannot understand what anyone sees in Romney. He's already run for President and lost. Who is really behind Romney's campaign for the White House.

I like what I hear from Newt. I trust him more than the others. And, I don't care one bit about how he handled his divorce in the past. I care about what he can do for this Country.

[philunderwood]

"As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given The Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his name, because America gave him the White House based on the same credentials."

~Newt Gingrich

[Ritty77]

Wow, Newt is really taking fire. But the fire seems to be from the Conservative "intelligentsia." The regular people seem to be blogging mostly positives about him.

We'll see how he does tonight. Should be good.

[relenemiller]

Aside from being a woman....me thinks I know the other reason Michelle Bachman isn't getting any coverage, much less accreditation from her peers or the GOP....she loves the Lord!

It's a sad state of affairs that this country would elect a man with dubious and downright scary philosophies, but because a person loves the Lord...he/she is immediately shot, no judge, no jury.

I don't have a problem with Newt or Mitt....but I know Bachman has not been given the time of day. As for answering questions directly? I find her more forthright than any of the rest because she's not in any lobbyists' pocket, or a career politician for ions...like Newt. That is what I don't like about him....he's too Washingtonized?

[relenemiller]

Go Michelle! She needed to come out strong and her handlers have rightly advised her.

Newt got tangled up in Freddie Mae...

Paul is an idiot....

Romeny is sooo smooth..

Perry was more composed tonight and a bit stronger

Santorum, I like...but I think like Michelle...he is too conservative..not for me...but for the general public...

It ain't over yet!

[Ritty77]

National Review has taken an unusual stance on Newt Gingrich, that is, to endorse his defeat.

Here is Andrew McCarthy's reply:

Gingrich’s Virtues
It is too early to rule out candidates.

I respectfully dissent from National Review’s Wednesday-evening editorial, which derided Newt Gingrich as not merely flawed but unfit for consideration as the GOP presidential nominee. The Editors further gave the back of the hand to the bids of two other prominent conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — a judgment that is simply inexplicable in light of the frivolousness of its reasoning and of the Editors’ embrace of Jon Huntsman, a moderate former Obama-administration official, as a serious contender.

The editorial surprised me, as it did many readers. I am now advised that the timing was driven by the editorial’s inclusion in the last edition of the magazine to be published this year, which went to press on Wednesday. The Editors believe, unwisely in my view, that before the first caucuses and primaries begin in early January, it is important to make known their insights — not merely views about the relative merits of the candidates but conclusions that some candidates are no longer worthy of having their merits considered. Like many other voters, I haven’t settled on a candidate. What I want at this very early stage is information about the candidates so I can consider them, not a presumptuous and premature pronouncement that good conservatives do not even rate consideration.

Regarding former Speaker Gingrich, I have no objection to the cataloguing of any candidate’s failings, and Newt has certainly made his share of mistakes. But there ought to be balance — balance between a candidate’s failings and his strengths, balance between the treatment of that candidate and of his rivals. The editorial fails on both scores.

Gingrich’s virtues are shortchanged — his great accomplishment in balancing the federal budget is not even mentioned, an odd omission in an election that is primarily about astronomical spending. His downsides are exaggerated in two unbecoming ways.

Let me preface the first by conceding that I am as concerned as anyone by the former Speaker’s walks on the wild side — though I think they are outweighed by his unique gifts. Like other conservatives, I was disappointed this week by his dig at Governor Romney’s success at Bain Capital — we can’t both fight to restore economic liberty and talk like Occupy Wall Street agitators when someone practices it. I accept Gingrich’s explanation that the remarks were a bad attempt at cutting humor — in reaction to withering taunts from the Romney campaign — and are not a reflection of his views. But he has to know that such outbursts exemplify his famed impulsiveness, giving his detractors a chance to say, “I told you so.”

Nevertheless, if the Editors were enterprising enough, they could just as easily write a similar editorial, with the same tone of alarm, about, say, Governor Romney or Governor Huntsman. Their heresies, too, are notorious — and their explanations no more satisfying. I am not suggesting that such editorials be written — particularly with respect to Romney who, like Gingrich, would make a superb president. I am just saying that it could be done. For the Editors to single out Gingrich for this kind of raking — particularly when his accomplishments in government dwarf anything his rivals have managed to achieve — fails the test of judgment conservatives expect from National Review. The transcendent mission of our founder calls for explicating principled conservative arguments about the great issues of the day, not “winnowing” intra-GOP primaries. I appreciate, as Jonah Goldberg recounts, that the magazine has made endorsements in some prominent contests throughout its history. In this instance, however, we are talking about clearing a seven-person field — eliminating strong conservatives, preserving spots for two moderates (and one solid conservative who is a very long long-shot) — before a single vote has been cast.

Second is the personal stuff. As the Editors point out, Newt has been a major figure in our politics for a very long time. We all know the marital history, and we all know it is relevant. There is, however, no need to dwell on it beyond saying it is obviously an issue voters must weigh — though hardly the top of the list. Yet the Editors make it the top of the list. It is Count One of their indictment, and they make sure to spell out that we’re talking not only about divorces but also about multiple marriages to “mistresses.” Later, just in case we’ve been too dense to get the Newt-is-a-betrayal-waiting-to-happen point, the Editors conclude by admonishing Republicans “to reject a hasty marriage to Gingrich, which would risk dissolving in acrimony” — the lasting impression they decided was worth emblazoning in big bold letters at the top of the homepage all day long. This has all the subtlety of Obama’s class-warfare tropes. I’m not contending that there’s no there there, but c’mon. I don’t want to cringe reading an editorial written by friends of mine any more than I want to wince hearing Newt talk about Bain Capital.

And as for Gingrich’s Republican “colleagues,” whom the Editors applaud for ejecting him from the speakership, no one can deny that they had their reasons. But is there not another side of that story worth telling? In the seven years they controlled Congress after Gingrich left, didn’t these esteemed colleagues have something of a “weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas”? Under a Republican president, they added over $3 trillion to the federal deficit, shunned conservative policy in favor of Beltway influence-peddling, and so damaged the GOP brand that we ended up, first, with an electoral rout that lost the majority Gingrich had worked years to forge, and then, with Obama. How much should I really care that Newt’s fabulous colleagues think his reemergence would be a disaster for Republicans? Lest these characters forget, it is the Tea Party and President Obama’s radicalism that have put them back in the saddle — 2010 was not a merit promotion; they were the only alternative in town.

The 2012 election will be about a government careering toward financial ruin, and Gingrich is the candidate who can say he actually wrestled the federal budget into balance — by comparison, Gov. Jon Huntsman, who the Editors say rates “serious consideration,” blew out Utah’s budget, raising government spending by a whopping 33 percent. In an election about the imperative to repeal Obamacare, Gingrich is the candidate who helped defeat Hillarycare — by comparison, Governor Romney ushered in a health-care system that became a model for Obamacare (and he stubbornly continues to insist that it was a great achievement — the main reason he can’t crack the 25 percent ceiling in most polls). In an election that is about grappling with budget-busting entitlements, Gingrich is the candidate who reformed welfare — which, the Editors acknowledge, is “the most successful social policy of recent decades.”

Is Newt guilty of so many missteps that the tremendous good he has done is outweighed? I don’t think so, but that is what the primary process is about. Although I think NR should stay out of the endorsement/disqualification business at this early stage of the GOP race, I would not complain if my colleagues were simply assessing both sides of the ledger and deciding that other candidates are preferable to Gingrich. But to conclude that he is unfit, as the Editors do, is not only wrong; it is a gross exaggeration. NR absolutely should give conservatives the information they deserve — good and bad — to make an intelligent choice. Moreover, while I don’t subscribe to this view, it is certainly defensible to argue that beating Obama is so vital that nominating a surer winner trumps nominating a potentially better president. But to declare, as the Editors do, that Gingrich should be “exclude[d] from consideration” is an unfair evaluation of his candidacy; more significantly, it is a disservice to conservatives and other Republicans, who are more than capable of assessing his worthiness vel non.

In an even worse excess, the Editors shift from skewering Speaker Gingrich to a peremptory dismissal of two other admirable conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. Perry has been a tremendously successful governor of Texas — a state that has experienced job growth while the national economy, under Obama, languishes in a near depression (or is it a “jobless recovery”?). Like Governor Perry, Representative Bachmann of Minnesota is a champion of limited government in the framework of the original Constitution. She has fought President Obama tooth and nail on Obamacare, the national debt, and other crucial issues — often holding to the fire the feet of a spaghetti-spined Republican establishment.

Playing to the cheap seats, the Editors mock Perry’s deficiencies as a debater — he needs “to spend much of his time untying his own tongue.” Do we really need to turn National Review into American Idol — and over trivia that pales beside Perry’s impressive executive record? Bachmann is a superb expositor of conservative principles, but the Editors are in a huff over her occasional resort to hyperbole — most infamously, overstating the dangers of Gardasil in an otherwise devastatingly competent critique of Perry's vaccination mandate. Such rhetorical gaffes seem pretty tame in a field of candidates whose flaws run substantive and deep. And were she to win the nomination, President Obama wouldn’t be able to exploit this vulnerability — even if he had the expert advice of Jon Corzine and of all the “corpse”-men in the 57 states, armed to the teeth with every breathalyzer the English embassy could find.

The Editors also want to drum Ron Paul out of the field. I think this is unwise, too, but not worth dwelling on. Paul has zero chance of being nominated, and the Editors give good reasons for discrediting his candidacy — although I think they’d have done well to clarify that when they refer to “the movement he leads,” they are not talking about the Tea Party (as opposed to an extremist anti-government fringe that likes to represent itself as the Tea Party). I’ll stick with Perry and Bachmann. The Editors’ position on this pair of good conservatives is astonishing when one compares it to their claim that Governor Huntsman “deserve serious consideration.”

Here is the totality of their argument: “Governor Huntsman has a solid record, notwithstanding his sometimes glib foreign-policy pronouncements; his main weakness is his apparent inability, so far, to forge a connection with conservative voters outside Utah.”

Seriously? When you ask conservatives and Republicans what they think of Governor Huntsman’s bid, you don’t get a bunch of psycho-babble about “inability to forge a connection.” You get, “Why would Republicans nominate a guy Obama picked for an important role in his administration?” Huntsman was the president’s ambassador to China — a fact the Editors, remarkably, omit. So, when it comes to Bachmann, the Editors think “anti-vaccine rumors” are a disqualifier; on Huntsman, however, somehow the little matter of his service in the Obama administration doesn’t even rate a mention. To be clear, I am not suggesting that there is anything dishonorable about Huntsman’s service. But we’re not talking about whether he should be ostracized; we’re talking about whether he is a viable candidate in a race Republicans must frame as a referendum on the Obama administration. How bad can the administration be if we’re going to recruit our nominee from it?

And Huntsman’s “solid record”? Maybe he has one if we’re gauging him by Republican-establishment standards. After all, as Utah’s governor, Huntsman was a spendaholic and global-warming alarmist who was lax on illegal immigration and favored a government mandate that citizens purchase health insurance. Does it get any more mainstream GOP than that? In 2009, Huntsman opined that the problem with Obama’s failed Keynesian stimulus was that it wasn’t big enough — it should have been $1 trillion (gee, I wonder why President Obama figured he’d be a good fit). On foreign policy — a topic on which even the Editors chide Huntsman despite their amazingly generous grading curve — he appears to be a transnational progressive of the Council on Foreign Relations bent who never met a treaty he didn’t like. Much can be said about all of that, but it is not exactly a “solid record” by conservative standards as National Review used to apply them.

This is not to say Governor Huntsman would not be a dramatic improvement over President Obama. As the Club for Growth notes, his irresponsible profligacy on the spending side was mitigated by sensible tax policies. He is clearly a very bright, articulate fellow — and he was overwhelmingly reelected governor of a very conservative state. But how could the beacon of the conservative movement find that he merits serious consideration but Gingrich, Perry, and Bachmann do not? That is absurd.

They all merit serious consideration: those four, as well as Governor Romney, with his significant up- and downsides, and Rick Santorum — who, along with Romney and Huntsman, is judged fit by the Editors to enter the trio to which they would whittle us down. When reliable conservatism and valuable experience are combined, Senator Santorum is as solid as any in the bunch. But given the Editors’ professed belief that the likelihood of beating Obama is such a crucial consideration, how odd that they single out “lack of executive experience” as his downside. Manifestly, Santorum’s credibility barrier is the electoral drubbing he suffered as an incumbent senator. He surely has a case that he can surmount this hurdle: Pennsylvania is a blue state, 2006 was a very bad year for Republicans, many great leaders have lost elections, and the passing years have proved him prescient on the cultural and foreign-policy issues that matter. But while Santorum could still catch a wave, as several of the other candidates have, it is the one-sided loss of his seat, not want of executive experience, that has dogged him.

The endorsement business and its flipside, the disqualification business, are bad ideas for this illustrious institution. That is a point I tried to make before the 2010 midterm elections. There is no avoiding the fact that we live in a practical, tactical world. Personality has its place and electability matters. But National Review has endured as a beacon of our movement for over a half-century because the power of conservative ideas can trump personality and dramatically alter voters’ notions about who is electable. If we lose that conviction — if we convince ourselves that conservative candidates, effectively arguing conservative ideas, cannot persuade a center-right country to reject the most radical Leftist ever to occupy the Oval Office — we are nowhere.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

www.nationalreview.com/articles/286053/gingrich-s-virtues-andrew-c-mccarthy

[philunderwood]

The Past and the Present

By Thomas Sowell

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

If Newt Gingrich were being nominated for sainthood, many of us would vote very differently from the way we would vote if he were being nominated for a political office.

What the media call Gingrich's "baggage" concerns largely his personal life and the fact that he made a lot of money running a consulting firm after he left Congress. This kind of stuff makes lots of talking points that we will no doubt hear, again and again, over the next weeks and months.

But how much weight should we give to this stuff when we are talking about the future of a nation?

This is not just another election and Barack Obama is not just another president whose policies we may not like. With all of President Obama's broken promises, glib demagoguery and cynical political moves, one promise he has kept all too well. That was his boast on the eve of the 2008 election: "We are going to change the United States of America."

Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster.

Internationally, it is worse. A president who has pulled the rug out from under our allies, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, tried to cozy up to our enemies, and has bowed low from the waist to foreign leaders certainly has not represented either the values or the interests of America. If he continues to do nothing that is likely to stop terrorist-sponsoring Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the consequences can be beyond our worst imagining.

Against this background, how much does Newt Gingrich's personal life matter, whether we accept his claim that he has now matured or his critics' claim that he has not? Nor should we sell the public short by saying that they are going to vote on the basis of tabloid stuff or media talking points, when the fate of this nation hangs in the balance.

Even back in the 19th century, when the scandal came out that Grover Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock — and he publicly admitted it — the voters nevertheless sent him to the White House, where he became one of the better presidents.

Do we wish we had another Ronald Reagan? We could certainly use one. But we have to play the hand we were dealt. And the Reagan card is not in the deck.

While the televised debates are what gave Newt Gingrich's candidacy a big boost, concrete accomplishments when in office are the real test. Gingrich engineered the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years — followed by the first balanced budget in 40 years. The media called it "the Clinton surplus" but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was Speaker of the House.

Speaker Gingrich also produced some long overdue welfare reforms, despite howls from liberals that the poor would be devastated. But nobody makes that claim any more.

Did Gingrich ruffle some feathers when he was Speaker of the House? Yes, enough for it to cost him that position. But he also showed that he could produce results.

In a world where we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available, the question is whether Newt Gingrich is better than Barack Obama — and better than Mitt Romney.

Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish as governor of Massachusetts, compared to what Gingrich accomplished as Speaker of the House? When you don't accomplish much, you don't ruffle many feathers. But is that what we want?

Can you name one important positive thing that Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts? Can anyone? Does a candidate who represents the bland leading the bland increase the chances of victory in November 2012? A lot of candidates like that have lost, from Thomas E. Dewey to John McCain.

Those who want to concentrate on the baggage in Newt Gingrich's past, rather than on the nation's future, should remember what Winston Churchill said: "If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." If that means a second term for Barack Obama, then it means lost big time.

[philunderwood]

Republican Voters' Choices

By Thomas Sowell

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

No one seems to be really happy with this year's field of Republican candidates for that party's presidential nomination — except perhaps the Democrats.

The sudden rise, and equally sudden fall, of a succession of Republican front-runners is just one sign of the dissatisfaction of the Republican voters with this field of candidates.

In this, as in many other aspects of life, we can only make our choice among the options actually available. So Republican voters who want to be realistic need to understand that they are going to end up with qualms and nagging doubts about whomever they pick this time.

Not all voters want to be realistic, of course. Some voters, whether Democrats, Republicans or independents, treat elections as occasions to vent their emotions, rather than as a process to pick someone into whose hands to place the fate of the nation.

People who think this way tend to vote for someone they just happen to like, whether for personal or ideological reasons, and regardless of whether that candidate has any realistic chance of being elected.

The surprising support in the polls for Congressman Ron Paul seems to be of this sort. But does anyone seriously want to put the fate of this nation in the hands of a man who can casually brush aside the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism?

Barring some astonishing surprise, the contest for the Republican nomination for president boils down to Mitt Romney versus Newt Gingrich. It is doubtful whether either of them is anyone's idea of an ideal candidate or a model of consistency.

The fact that each of the short-lived front-runners in the Republican field gained that position by presenting themselves as staunch conservatives suggests that Republican voters may have been trying to avoid having to accept Mitt Romney, whose record as governor of Massachusetts produced nothing that would be regarded as a serious conservative achievement.

Romney's own talking point that he has been a successful businessman is no reason to put him into a political office, however much it may be a reason for him to become a successful businessman again.

Perhaps the strongest reason for some voters to support Governor Romney is that the smart money says he is more "electable" than the other candidates in general and Newt Gingrich in particular. But there was a time when even some conservative smart money types were saying that Ronald Reagan was too old to run for president, and that he should step aside for someone younger.

Washington Post editor Meg Greenfield said that the people in the Carter White House were "ecstatic" when the Republicans nominated Reagan, because they were convinced that they could clobber him.

Today, it is said that the Obama administration fears Romney, but would relish the opportunity to clobber Gingrich because of his "baggage." CNN has already started digging into Gingrich's most recent divorce.

Much depends on whether you think the voting public is going to be more interested in Newt Gingrich's personal past than in the country's future. Most of the things for which Gingrich has been criticized are things he did either in his personal life or when he was out of office. But, if we are serious, we are more concerned with his ability to perform when in office.

Even some of those who believe that Gingrich would devastate Obama in head-to-head debates on substantive issues nevertheless claim that all Obama has to do is come back with questions about Newt's work for failed mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac.

But, even at the personal, point-scoring level, Barack Obama can open up a can of worms by going that route, since Freddie Mac at least never planted bombs in public places, like some of Obama's political allies.

There are no guarantees, no matter whom the Republicans vote for in the primaries. Why not vote for the candidate who has shown the best track record of accomplishments, both in office and in the debates? That is Newt Gingrich. With all his shortcomings, his record shows that he knows how to get the job done in Washington.

[Ritty77]

Dr. Sowell must have read my LTE. Sad that he failed to credit my work. Nevertheless, Newt and I are honored to have his support.

Newt cried today. Real tears! He'll hold his own in Iowa, and may surprise. Since he's leading the SC polls, he'll stick in through NH. If he surprises in NH (McCain beat Romney there in '08), he'll be in the driver's seat.

GO NEWT!

[relenemiller]

Sorry guys....can't go with a Washington icon/insider/wall flower/lobbyist/DC historian (yes...that much part of the roll call)...gotta have new...just am not completely sure who yet. And....unlike much of the republican base, I'm not voting on who can beat Obama...because I'm a believer that anyone can.