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Newt is Official

Gingrich is officially in the race. The AP breaks that he'll announce on Wednesday. The WSJ profiles "Newt, Inc." today, described as a "network of advocacy and for-profit groups ... providing a publicity and policy machine without parallel among his likely Republican rivals."
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Discussions - 13 Comments

I was just reading Paul Rahe this morning on the topi of the usual Republican suspects. Here, https://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Road-Ahead-Searching-for-a-Standard-Bearer

He wrote of Gingrich,

"His intelligence cannot be doubted. But his personal life cannot be defended, and he is a loose cannon – apt to line up with the likes of Nancy Pelosi on a fashionable issue like global warming. More to the point, he is a managerial progressive. Like Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, and both Bush père and Bush fils, he is always on the outlook for something additional that the federal government can do. He is in no position to articulate the case for limited government, and what applies to him applies to Mike Huckabee as well."

I do not think I will be voting for Mr. Gingrinch. It's not so much that I am adamantly against him, as I am against those I suppose would eventually be his key enabling supporters. My fear is that they would kneecap anybody on the center-right who gets in the way of the great glorious GOP victory ("don't you know how politics is done, son?"), and that in some ways we will have "Compassionate Conservatism II", as the Establishment Strikes Back.

For with that crowd, full of self-confidence from their own successes in other fields--but also aware of their own weaknesses, and thinking nothing better can be achieved in the face of the MSM/establishment left onslaught than what they can achieve--we might as well pick the issue we will be preemptively surrendering on now, so we can get a head start on the stages of the Kubler-Ross model...

Democrats had Bill Clinton. Republicans have Newt Gingrich. You can't live your personal life one way and try to expect people that you will be a trusted elected official. Hippocrite....

Except that Clinton was never divorced, Bill and Hillary never let a little infidelity get in the way of politics, that increases my trust in them as elected officials, and you wouldn't have had the Clinton years without Newt. Its not that hard to figure out independents. You have a whole host of things folks track, but the whole Hippocrite label is sort of tossed around without much care for its materiality.

If you can find a republican whose intelligence cannot be doubted you are way ahead of the curve. Its like saying we have a factor that might be "material", but lets ignore it because we have unquestioned assumptions that we want to apply analytically. He's like Bill Clinton (what was Bill Clinton really like?)

Yawn look, the biggest hit on Newt was that he pursued the Clinton impeachment, not necessarily because it was hypocritical because he also was carying on an affair (which it was), but because it was not very good national interest judgement(albeit you could argue that it was good partisan interest judgement, and he owed his fiduciary duties to "republicans", a sort of loosing argument).

Newt doesn't get elected to a board of directors, but Al Gore who is on Apple does, and Clinton would be electable as well.

It is very simple, first of all Obama has more integrity than Clinton or Newt, but Obama also has a better mind than anyone in the republican field. When indepedents who might vote republican catch wind of the sort of immaterial factors considered...

It seems possible to me that Newt spent everything in his tank on advancing his network of partisan interests, but that is just political obsession. He could potentially ask: Why are you still married? Can you actually say you gave everything you had in the tank, if you emmerged with an intact marriage? It is at least arguable that happy marriages are sacrificed.

Because look here is the thing, it is fine if Dr. Moser decides to be libertarian, that is simple, and in a Nietschean way a sort of healthy political ideology, just as being independent or indifferent is potentially healthy. So technically there is something healthy about being a tea partier to an extent. It is fairly easy enough, and a fairly easy view of politics is also presented by say Gary Johnson, leaves plenty of time for climbing mountains...But Gingrich could ask, as Pete seems to when he dislikes Johnson's likeability..why are you still married, why are you still a "healthy" human being?

It is hardly unheard of for executives to give up a ballanced and healthy life for obssession, and the key with the Clintons which makes them greater is the ability to understand that the ethical rules to the game differ in some respect for couples engaged body and soul in politics.

I don't endorse Newt, I just don't think you guys have walked out the "materiality" component of why his personal life needs to be defended.

The folks in the media must be rubbing their collective hands in glee over this. The storylines practically write themselves. They have their new "ugly face of the GOP." Sarah Palin can take a break for a while.

Outside of a small percentage of conservative voters, Gingrich is simply toxic. As was written elsewhere, Gingrich couldn't get elected to statewide office in Georgia, let alone the whole United States.

And it's not just his personal life. It is a large and complex web of negatives -- some tangible, some not -- that floats around in the back of most voters' minds about Gingrich.

Every other GOP candidate must now work to position themselves as not Gingrich. Any position Gingrich holds must now be crafted by the others as somehow different from Gingrich. Nobody dare be tarred with the same brush.

... unless this is all part of some clever ploy to have Gingrich serve as lightning rod so other, more serious candidates have time to develop their messages.

But I don't think it is that.

*sigh*

"It is very simple, first of all Obama has more integrity than Clinton or Newt, but Obama also has a better mind than anyone in the republican field."

Do you believe that? I don't see it at all. I believe he believes that of himself, but don't know why I must share the belief.

I don't mind hypocrisy since it is an acknowledgement of virtue, or rather of one's failing in the absolute virtue our public selves seem to need. Washington's idea of character seems to apply, that we should seek to live up to the public face we adopt as our best selves. But when we fail as a person we should do so with that character we present to the world, not burdening the world with our messy little interior selves.

Covering for shame is one thing; lying under oath is something else. Although, there are some questions we should not ask each other, especially in the public sphere. This is such an unmannerly time. But it seems to me as I get older that it is impolite to expect people to reveal all. I don't think God even asks people to be wholly exposed: he just knows what humans really are. So do we, often, and to say "Reveal yourself!" is to make the public discourse a peep show. We really shouldn't do that to one another. In fact, it is generally more correct to cover up for modesty's sake. It would be nice to know whole stories about people, but they are people and not characters in some national soap opera. Couldn't we acknowledge failings of judgement and character and decline to support the candidate in the next election?

Misusing an office is something else. That betrays public trust. Clinton's affair was not the real problem; how he abused the office he held was. Did Mr. Gingrich abuse his office in the same way? I don't recall that.

My concerns about Gingrich for president are mainly two: that which Paul Rahe explains well above, and that of cowgirl's response which says that the public perception of Gingrich's character will keep him from winning national office. If he thinks he can overcome the latter then he is not as smart as he thinks he is. I wish he would go back to Congress, running from some safe district, and work for the nation from there. That's what he would do if he really meant to contribute to the national debate in a serious way. He's cluttering the presidential field.

"Except that Clinton was never divorced, Bill and Hillary never let a little infidelity get in the way of politics, that increases my trust in them as elected officials"

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Bill Clinton was a perpetual dog in heat and used his position as President to do any woman any time whether she wanted it or not (think Juanita Broderick). The Clintons stayed together because Hillary wanted to be the first woman President. The Clinton's first two terms as President Hillary Clinton and First Lady Bill Clinton were full of immoral and illegal behavior - Bill obviously was the only one who got caught. The man lost his law license because he lied on the stand. Hillary was involved in all kinds of messes like Whitewater and Travel Gate.

Obama has more integrity than all of them. WTF. The guy has lied about everything. Please tell me one thing he has not lied about.

By the way, I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale... give me a call - we can make a deal - TRUST ME.

I've always liked him, and I would vote for him for POTUS. Any man who had the guts to shut down the Federal Government is OK in my book. As for his personal life, who cares? Our nation has settled that, we reelected a liar and womanizer. As for his politics, he's not everything I could wish, but he's not John McCain or Robert Dole either. I've read one of his books, and it is thoughtful, scholarly and, where it counts, conservative.

I suspect that one reason people are down on him is because he really has potential. On the other hand, the Obama administration is "trembling" over Mitch Daniels, which tells us that they would love to run against HIM.

In nothing else, Newt will improve the intellectual quality of the primaries. Good for him (and us!).

It is very simple,

Good. Say it in fewer than 1,000 words.

He. Can't. Win.

That's what they said about Reagan in 1976, and so we got stuck with Ford. And we nominated McCain because "he's the only one who can win."

Instead of electability, let's attend to values/instincts and policies. My sense of it is that whenever a real conservative runs he/she tends to win.

"I don't mind hypocrisy since it is an acknowledgement of virtue..."

Is that a blanket declaration, or do you mean that you don't mind hypocrisy when exhibited by conservative Republicans?

And since you were obviously talking about Gingrich - at least in part - it pays to remember that he denies he was even hypocritical:

https://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0311/Newt_Gingrich_Im_not_a_hypocrite_for_impeaching_Clinton_while_cheating_on_my_wife.html

...when he was pushing for Clinton's impeachment on sex-related matters at the same time that he was cheating on his 2nd wife.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/10/usa.edpilkington

But I guess social conservatives are supposed to shrug all of that off, since his infidelity was caused by his deep love for the USA.

These gems from Newt made me LOL:

"You can condemn that. You can say it’s totally inappropriate. It was about a much deeper and more profound thing: Does the president of the United States have to obey the law? Or as long as he’s popular, or she’s popular, can they flout the law? Do we become a third world country where the leader gets to get anyway with anything they want to but you and I obey the law?"

and

"Should a president of the United States be above the law? Now I don’t think the president of the United States can be above the law.”

But, of course, IOKIYAR/C

You are on a roll of giving me delight of late. That was very funny.

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