He'll be the savior of the conservative movement, I tell ya.
Please Newt, don't do it. Sure, you may get the Conservative Christian vote, but that's not even the majority of the GOP vote and you'll get exactly zero of the Independent and Democrat vote unless some little old ladies have trouble with their butterfly ballots again. Keep you day job as commentator on various news shows as your time has passed and to be honest, you're not all that appealing. Here's the scoop:
Matt Towery, a former senior aide to Newt Gingrich, had dinner with the former House Speaker and notes "it is clear that the presidency is now very much" on his mind "and that he remains convinced that none of the candidates in the current field has captured the imagination of the party."
And Newt will? This is an excuse for Newt, he sees a traffic jam and he's going to ride in and steal votes from Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. All that will happen is he'll take some of the social conservative vote from Rudy, some of the Southern vote from Fred and plod along in the 8-11% range where Romney's currently residing and get crushed in the primaries.
You know what Newt? On second thought, run and take some of the heat off the candidates that really matter. It will be like a two-week vacation for Giuliani and Thompson so throw your hat in.
In a recent interview with Linda Douglas of the National Journal, Newt Gingrich has become the odds maker. He believes that the Democrats have an 80% chance of winning. Of course, he hasn't factored into the formula who will be counting the votes.
It seems that the best Republican candidate, is the one not running. Fred Thompson was going to run away with it once he declared. Well, he declared and he is not running away with it.
Gingrich is sitting back, hoping the others will fail. He is waiting on the sidelines waiting to be invited into a race in which the Republicans are going to lose. Newt saved them before and he should not be underestimated. When you consider all the skeletons that have come out of Giuliani's closet, Gingrich must be pretty confident that his skeletons are not half as bad as Rudy's.
If Rudy Giuliani can be a front runner, so can Newt.
Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain and ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich both attended a recent gala event for Christians United for Israel (CUFI).
"Speaking of Iraq, (McCain) said, 'The temptation is to wash our hands of a messy situation. To follow this impulse, however, portends catastrophe, for Iraq, Israel, and the United States,'" The American Conservative reported.
Gingrich, meanwhile, awaited the proceedings "with a somewhat bored expression on his face," and didn't exactly impress in his speech, according to TAC.
What role will the Mideast, and the Bible prophecies that inspire some Christian Zionists, play in the 2008 presidential election? TAC did note that the CUFI event attracted 4,500 people, and that the gathering included many powerful televangelists. Is this the support that McCain and Gingrich have been praying for?
Republicans? By taking the Bush administration to task, by taking the current lackluster candidates to task and most of all for saying the vaunted war on terror is a failure and more than that, a fabrication? Really, Newt Gingrich said that? Yes, he did:
"We used to be a serious country. When we got attacked at Pearl Harbor, we took on Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany," he said, referring to World War II. "We beat all three in less than four years. We're about to enter the seventh year of this phony war against ... [terrorist groups], and we're losing."
That's not all. He said the Republican-led Congress and administration is a failure.
"We were in charge for six years," he said, referring to the period between 2001 and early 2007, when the GOP controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. "I don't think you can look and say that was a great success."
What will it take to fix things? According to Newt, less partisanship (a bit strange coming from one who helped start the current war in Congress) and energy independence. You can read the article and quotes for yourself. Certainly making greater strides towards energy independence is becoming widely accepted as a solution. We desperately need a multi-prong approach so that within a few years we can get a divorce from the Saudis and restore democracy here at home. I don't think Newt is a viable candidate but he said a few straight things in this speech. What do you think? Is the public being played for suckers by fear mongers? Is the the threat being overplayed? Would energy independence help solve our problems?
Robert Novak is reporting that Newt Gingrich is waiting to see how Fred Thompson does in the next couple of months. If it appears that the campaign of Fred is dead, Newt will jump in and save the party. The story goes on to report that Gingrich was very much involved in the defeat of the "immigration bill" which was strongly supported by President Bush. There is no question that Gingrich is going to make President Bush the target of his campaign. He will not be saddled by the Bush failures.
Once Fred Thompson hits the campaign trail, his weakness will become obvious. He will drop in the polls and Gingrich will announce. Look for a September announcement.
Regardless of your political persuasion, you have to respect Newt Gingrich as a political genius. After the most recent French election, Newt pointed out that the conservative candidate ran a smart campaign. He was succeeding Jacques Chirac who was no longer popular and faced a variety of scandals. Nicolas Sarkozy ran .... away from Chirac and won. The liberal candidate lost.
Gingrich is carving up President Bush, portraying him as an incompetent president. Once again, Gingrich is placing himself in the position of saving the Republican party. There is none more conservative. He can master mind an upset. He is warning Republicans that they will lose it all if the Republican nominee is considered to be a continuation of the Bush presidency. To be more specific, here is an extract from that article:
"He has roundly criticized the Bush administration in recent interviews, describing the White House as dysfunctional and saying the president has driven the party into collapse. While he refrained from direct criticism Friday, he cited failures in Iraq, border security and the response to Hurricane Katrina as signs of a broken government." And this is just the beginning of a long list of Bush failures.
With all due respect to my fellow AOL Blogger, John Mullaney, don't worry about Newt in the GOP race. Oh he's likely to run, but he's not going to win -- not a chance. In one sense, that's a shame because he's the purest ideological conservative that's likely to run this season. But he's also got insurmountable problems.
Problem #1: The Affair
While carrying the water for the Clinton impeachment, it turns out that Gingrich carried on an affair with a 33 year old women while married to his second wife. I can't imagine any Republican who wants to defend this level of hypocrisy in 2008.
Problem #2: The high negatives
I have my doubts as to whether, even without the affair, Newt could win a national election. For four years, from 1994 - 1998 he had nothing but personal attacks and demonization from his political enemies. His caustic nature didn't help. That part didn't bother me, I like a fighter, but a president takes something more than being a warrior, it takes being a happy warrior. Newt has the first part in spades, but not the second.
When the leaves on the tree start to fall to the ground, Newt Gingrich will announce that he is the messiah for which conservatives have been praying. Recently, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, Newt indicated that there was a great liklihood he would be running.
Gingrich does his best when he is out of power. It was the Gingrich revolution in 1994 that brought the Republicans into complete control of the United States Government. Based on his plan, the Republicans controlled the U. S. Supreme Court (7 Republicans and 2 Democrats), the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency. However, he wasn't there to lead the charge.
His Contract With America was broken by his own party. The balanced budget that was dear to his heart was almost achieved by Bill Clinton. Instead, President Bush created one of the largest deficits ever.
According to the article, Gingrich has been critical of the way Bush has handled the Iraq War and believes the U.S. should just get out. He has held this position since 2003. Unlike others, he is not taking a position because of the polls.
It's almost as if there's a competition among the Republican candidates for president to see who can offend their speaking engagement audiences the most. First there came Mitt Romney's flop before a gathering of the Cuban community in South Florida. Then Newt Gingrich wowed a crowd by declaring Spanish a "ghetto language." And now we have Tommy Thompson's turn at the mic. Thompson, who bills himself as the only "reliable conservative" in the Republican field, recently addressed the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and let fly with what he must have thought was a compliment:
"I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."
Imagine his surprise when the audience recoiled. Sensing the discomfort, Thompson hazarded an explanation:
"I just want to clarify something because I didn't by any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," he said. "What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You've been outstanding business people and I compliment you on that."
Good on you, Jews. You really know how to sock that money away! But by day's end there was yet another apology, this time delivered by a Thompson spokesman:
"He is sorry he misspoke in complimenting the success that Jewish people have had in the United States. It is something that he admires financially and otherwise."
This is the kind of story I wish I could write everyday. Two of our political luminaries, John Kerry and Newt Gingrich, debating the subject of global warming with the cameras rolling, and each man taking pains to listen to, and praise the other in the midst of a philosophical disagreement. How different this exchange played in contrast to the Inhofe vs. Gore showdown last month, which pitted the frothing warming denier against the issue's biggest cheerleader.
This time around, what transpired was a reasoned dialog. Granted, that may have to do with the fact that both Kerry and Gingrich agree that global warming is real and that humans play a significant role in its worsening. Where they differed was on the steps that we should take. Gingrich, who has long been a small-government Republican, put forth the notion the marketplace offered our best hope:
"Regulation and litigation are the least effective methods of getting to solutions," Gingrich said... "Rewarding entrepreneurship and investing in science and technology--reshaping the market with incentives--are the fastest ways to get change."
Kerry agreed that free-market innovation would have to play a major role, but added that it was also imperative to set governmental caps on emissions in the meantime.
"You can't just sit there and say, "Oh, let the market respond," Kerry said. "That's like saying, 'Barry Bonds, go investigate steroids.' Or like saying, 'Enron, you take over the pensions for America.' Not going to happen."
No matter where you come down on this issue, it was refreshing to hear two lawmakers engage one another on substance. I wonder if Inhofe was watching.
Okay, this video is funny on so many levels that I don't know where to begin. Why on earth did Newt make it? Because he said something about Spanish being a "ghetto language." Well, as you can see from the clip below, Gingrich is getting pretty good at expressing himself in ghetto speak, though he seems to lapse into French here and there. English? Well, not so much. What's most incredible about this clip is that Gingrich made it himself in an attempt to stamp out the controversy over his remarks. I wasn't attacking your language the way it sounded like I was attacking it. Good luck with that Newt!
It is interesting to me that some candidates and voters alike still claim that private life should not matter in the election.
We have Newt Gingrich "confessing" the extramarital affair he had while he pursued Clinton's impeachment to James Dobson. He asked for forgiveness, only to come out this week and say that a candidate's personal life shouldn't be an issue in an election. Well, why did he tell the public in the first place? Then we have Rudy, who asked for privacy with his children who are by their choice not on the campaign trail with him.
On the flip side we have John Edwards, who explains in detail how doctors found the recurrence of cancer in his wife -- reassuring the public that the campaign goes on in full force despite those circumstances.
In all these examples you can tell the personal life of politicians matters as much to them as it matters to most of us. For me, the personal lives of politicians matter if I suspect a hint of hypocrisy (like in Gingrich's case) or if the life style of the politician doesn't match what their party wants to accomplish.
I have read the conservative blogs and those that defend Ann Coulter. She has every right to say whatever she wants. She can imply that people who are heterosexual are really homosexual. She can put them in the box. You see, the success of the Republican party has been to create groups of people that hate each other. Fear and hatred have been the formula to victory for the Republican party. Newt Gingrich has a sister that is gay. So what. It is all about a political plan. Who cares about your sister. Attack them, smear them.
Dick Cheney is offended when somebody talks about his daughter being in love with another woman and having a child. That is private. Politics allows him to breed hatred against the group that is homosexual but he loves his daughter and we should leave her alone.
The Republican Party was led by the moral majority while their party leaders were immoral. No problem, it was all about politics. The formula for winning has included hatred. Go after immigrants, verbally attack homosexuals and most of all if you don't believe in God, how could you ever run the country. You see, all these things are a distraction. Ann Coulter is a lightening rod. She takes attention away from the real issues. Let Ann Coulter say what she wants. You see, she is the Republican Party.
To nobody's surprise, Newt Gingrich acknowledged that he was having an affair while he crucified Bill Clinton for being immoral. He can explain it anyway that he wants, but this it the height of hypocrisy. For a party that has worn religion on its coat-sleeve, it is putting together a list of presidential candidates that is making Bill Clinton look like he was celibate.
It was always my belief that when Bill Clinton was confronted with the fact that he was having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, he was sure it would go away. Why? Because he knew that everybody else was doing the same thing. What is didn't count on was the hypocrisy. Think about it, they tell Bill you are in trouble for having oral sex. He says, but Newt is sleeping with his aide. Newt's replacement, Bob Livingston quickly resigned after it was learned that he hung out with prostitutes.
This upcoming presidential election is very important. America needs to select a person who can resolve the difficult problems ahead. We should be looking for an intelligent person who has the confidence to weed through all those providing advice that may be tied to financial gains or irrational motives. Sad to say, we should not be looking for a saint. Therefore, I would ask that this election be based on where the candidates stand on issues. However, I realize that is just a dream.
After years of staying quiet on the subject, Newt Gingrich now admits that he was carrying on with another woman at the same time he was leading impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton -- proceedings based on the president's actions during an investigation born out of his carrying on with another woman.
But Gingrich insists he's no hypocrite. From the AP story:
"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," the former Georgia congressman said of Clinton's 1998 House impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials."
It's not news that Newt's personal life is, well, messy. He's got two divorces under his belt. The first reportedly took place while his then-wife was fighting cancer. And in the second case, Gingrich -- via his lawyers -- acknowledged an extramarital relationship (one with the woman who is his current wife).
The question is, for someone who has long run on "family values," does this admission hurt Newt's potential White House aspirations? Or is it old news at this point? And looking at the bigger picture, is there even room for Gingrich in the 2008 Republican field?
In a recent interview with 
Regardless of your political persuasion, you have to respect 
It is interesting to me that some candidates and voters alike still claim that private life should not matter in the election. 
