Steve M. flags a quote that also caught my eye:
Gingrich “only has two modes — attack and brag,” explained one veteran GOP strategist.
For my money, no one else has nailed the feel of this Republican primary the way Steve M. has. He asked of Donald Trump “are we really sure that couldn’t work — winning the nomination, by being the macher, the mack, the big pimp?” Yes, Trump flamed out but he was never in it to win it, and his Big Poppa routine played a lot better than I ever thought it would, however briefly. And the gangster rap comparison was perfect:
Huntsman is like a rapper who isn’t gangsta, doesn’t want to be gangsta, and knows that some of the people making their name on gangsta don’t want you to know that they have problems with “authenticity.” The problem is, Huntsman is like M.C. Hammer — a family-friendly rapper with mass-market dance moves and baggy pants — and he’s certain that, sooner or later, people are going to get tired of all the songs about gangbanging, and what they’ll want instead is … him and his G-rated rhymes and his dance moves and clown pants. Because that was popular before gangsta.
Yes, “attack and brag” is 100% perfect for this Republican primary. And no apologizies. Gingrich’s three marriages don’t hurt him much with the Republican base because it’s a slap in the face to all the mythical left-wing prudes the same way that dressing as Jack-and-Marlboro for Halloween is. All those millions he’s made quasi-illegally? Just shows he’s a bad-ass money-maker, the kind that libruls love to hate.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying music or movies or books that celebrate tough guy attack-and-brag personae. I don’t there’s even anything so awful about liking celebrities who seem to embrace that persona.
Some kind of line has been crossed when a large portion of the Republican party wants that in the leader of the free world. We saw the beginnings of this with all the “bring ’em on” faux cowboy bullshit we saw from George W. Bush, but that was in the context of a war, not a presidential debate and it had an “I’ll keep you safe” edge to it. This primary isn’t about keeping anyone safe, it’s about some strange wing-nut form of dick-measurement.
schrodinger's cat
So do you think Newt will be the nominee?
BruceFromOhio
Then three strikes for Newt, because he clearly couldn’t figure out that simple reckoning.
If the clown car swerves and hits the right bumps in the center ring, and somehow manages to barf out this soulless ratfuck lowlife scumbag of a grifter as the GOP candidate, I can’t wait for that sour look on his puss when the President serves him a full plate of hot, steaming crow in the debates.
Yutsano
Newt has a temper. One of Bill Clinton’s best talents was being able to exploit Newt’s temper. He’ll blow up at an inopportune time and the video will go viral. I’ll make popcorn.
@schrodinger’s cat: Who’s left? The two Mormons and the guy who’s name is also a sexual term?
Villago Delenda Est
Newt is just another Mammon worshiping asshole, so of course the 27%, who are all Mammon worshiping assholes, love him, and also, he doesn’t wear funny underwear like the other major Mammon worshiping asshole still in contention.
Calming Influence
“strange wing-nut form of dick-measurement” needs to be a tag.
MattF
I know there’s bad feeling about Mo Dowd– and with some justification; she’s smart enough to do better, but can’t drop the schtick. That said, Dowd on Noot:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/dowd-out-of-africa-and-into-iowa.html?ref=opinion
schrodinger's cat
Is his real name Newt? as in a lizard?
Boudica
@schrodinger’s cat: Newton Leroy Gingrich….
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: Newton Leroy. Yes, really.
Boudica
as in fig…..
schrodinger's cat
@Yutsano: I don’t get this antipathy to the Mormons. Other possibilities:
May be a brokered convention?
Sarah/Jeb Bush to the rescue
Tunch gets the nomination
schrodinger's cat
@Boudica: Seems like he has had one too many! Seriously Leroy? That is even worse than Newt. Poor Newt, why did his parents hate him so?
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
Look how he turned out. Of course they hated him.
ant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVOrUjxsVIU
thread need soundtrack.
BGinCHI
I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Mike in NC
If Newt is the nominee — and that’s still highly unlikely — his three marriages, serial adultery, boundless greed, hypocrisy, and conversion to Catholicism will be huge liabilities to the base, not to mention to so-called independents and swing voters.
The GOP is the “party of personal responsibility”, where the self-described Values Voters and evangelicals hang out. Newt’s baggage with baggage isn’t going to be an easy sell to that crowd, no matter how hard the little bastard begs forgiveness.
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat: It won’t be Jeb. The stink of Dubya is too strong.
Too much work for Snowbilly Snookie unless she gets it handed to her at a brokered convention.
His Tunchness would break the country for his payments demands in tuna. Plus he already rules us. We just have puppet governments.
BGinCHI
@Mike in NC: If Cain is his running mate, that could lead to a Georgia Express Hot Tub Rolling Supply Side Thunder Tour.
The bus would also have card swipers on the side so you could donate while it was still moving.
schrodinger's cat
@Yutsano: Tunch will rule with an iron paw. Plus he 3/4 white and the orange tail adds the requisite diversity.
MikeJ
Yes, MC Hammer was a G rated rapper.
So was Will Smith.
Brachiator
Great title, although I still like one that I mentioned in another thread that Newt is Bringing Nasty Back.
It’s interesting to see how eager some conservative pundits are to see Newt take on Obama in a presidential debate. They keep noting how sharp Newt can be when he goes on the attack. And they keep mooning over how Newt comes up with lots of ideas. Of course that they are bad ideas doesn’t seem to matter to them.
Of course, lurking in the background is the belief that Mitt is too weak and vacillating to take Obama on, and the feverish dream that Newt has what it takes (he was professor, too, concha know) to deal with an uppity Obama.
If by some weird disruption in the Force, Newt ends up being the nominee, I will bet good money that he will end up looking like a total fool when he tries to present himself, as he inevitably would, as a proud Southerner using a firm hand to put an uppity black in his place.
EconWatcher
The odds are certainly against Gingrich getting the White House (though not so much now against him getting the nomination, it seems to me, especially with Mitt seemingly losing his cool).
But really, this is no joke. Gingrich is emotionally unstable, arrogant to the point of megalomania, and prone to bizarre theories and gestures. If he won, our journey to the status of banana republic would drastically accelerate. We’d remember with nostalgia the comparatively steady hand and good judgment of George W. Bush. Really.
BGinCHI
@Brachiator: Just to be clear, Newt was a prof until his colleagues called bullshit, denied him tenure, and he was fired.
Resentment anyone?
EconWatcher
@BGinCHI:
I did not know this. Where? When?
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: So is he taking his revenge on the rest of us, for his atrocious name and being denied tenure?
DougJ
@MikeJ:
Will Smith is a unique talent.
Lysana
@MikeJ: And Hammer managed to come back from being overly generous to his presumed friends and is now a venture capitalist.
What gets me is even with the GOP field as it stands, a friend of mine insists Obama won’t win. She’s with Occupy Portland, so I encouraged her rather strongly to think about what she was telling me about possible movement on DC and the anti-Democratic attitude in some sections of Occupy as a risk to proving that prediction true. I can’t be sure if I got anywhere, as she’s way too good at sticking to her own conversation and my input be damned.
But really, I think on top of the GOP field prone to generate people like Gingrich as potential front-runners, Occupy’s at risk of being a wild card. And it might open the door for anyone. Even the Wasilla grifter. Point being? Too far out to say anything will happen. I think Obama can win. I also see where some things may make the intolerable happen.
And yes, she told me flat-out there is talk of shifting Occupiers from their cities to stage larger events in DC. This had her fretting over military juntas in charge. I pointed out the GOP winning would be the surest way for it to happen, so why can’t Occupy get over attacking the Dems and realize they’re the only party that can do anything right for this country? She declined to engage that point.
BGinCHI
@EconWatcher: From the wiki:
“In 1970, Gingrich joined the history department at West Georgia College as an assistant professor. In 1974 he moved to the geography department and was instrumental in establishing an inter-disciplinary environmental studies program. Denied tenure, he left the college in 1978.”
Nothing against WGC, but you know how easy it was to get tenure in the 1970s? Unless you were at a top 10 research 1 university, getting tenure then was not difficult. The academic job market only really got competitive (or hyper-competitive, really) in the 1980s.
He was either hated, terrible at his job, or failed to publish anything, or some combination of these things. I’m sure the fuller story is out there somewhere.
FlipYrWhig
@EconWatcher: Here’s the Wikipedia entry for Gingrich. Scroll down to “Early Life.”
RossInDetroit
@EconWatcher:
It’s gonna be a blast seeing him square off against The Donald in a debate. Clash of the Titanic Egos.
Popcorn!!!
BGinCHI
@DougJ: I always thought he was a front for DJ Jazzy Jeff. No?
FlipYrWhig
@BGinCHI: Here’s some of the fuller story from A Newt Chronology via PBS/Frontline.
catclub
@EconWatcher: “Gingrich is emotionally unstable, arrogant to the point of megalomania, and prone to bizarre theories and gestures.”
You know who else was emotionally unstable and a megalomaniac?
Benjamin Franklin
http://www.politico.com/playbook/1211/playbook1623.html
–A TOP CAIN ADVISER tells us the former candidate plans to endorse in the next few weeks â certainly this month, in order to affect the Iowa caucuses â and is most likely to go GINGRICH.
And with that goes Cain’s 2%, his campaign cash, and the support of all discarded Stepford Wives.
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: I would have watched that, but I swore off amphibian life-cycle programs over the summer. I was just getting too addicted.
sharl
OT (though not entirely so)-
In case Dennis G. is reading: Dennis, I just heard your ol’ pal Jack Abramoff being interviewed on Bob Edwards Weekend. [Unfortunately the show is no longer available via podcast, though perhaps Sirius XM or local stations will rebroadcast it.]
You’re the expert on this guy, not me. He didn’t do any blatant lying that I could tell, and he came off as generally subdued, humble, and regretful. Bob Edwards was a good choice for him, given the laid back and nonthreatening nature of Edwards’ interviewing style. There are a few media types out there who would have brought up the worst of his past – the Northern Marianas Islands business comes to mind – but Edwards basically let him do most of the talking.
I didn’t hear any allusion to his future plans, other than hawking his book, of course [Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From Americaâs Most Notorious Lobbyist].
WereBear (itouch)
and this works against him as the Repub nominee how?
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: Oh, this is just too good:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/newtchron.html
Benjamin Franklin
Hoo Boy ! Is HE wrong……
Brachiator
@catclub
Yeah, Newt does remind me a lot of Richard Nixon, but with even fewer redeeming qualities.
Xecky Gilchrist
that was in the context of a war, not a presidential debate and it had an âIâll keep you safeâ edge to it.
Maybe that was there for people who wanted to hear it – and maybe the speechwriters intended it – but IMO, Dubya delivered it as pure dick.
BGinCHI
@Brachiator: Why do I always think the answer to this is Courtney Love?
Cat Lady
The general consensus among the not crazy that the GOP candidates are all pathetic clowns has even started to seep into the 27%ers bubble, and there’s nothing worse for teatards than to realize that they’re being pointed to and laughed at. That’s what’s animating their newfound Newt love – he’s considered to be smart. That he’s a stupid person’s idea of a smart person doesn’t matter to them. They just hear others outside of their bubble put “Newt” and “smart” in the same sentence, and that’s the lifesaver they’re going to grab onto. Plus, Newt’s got a wicked mean streak, and that’s just gravy.
Amir Khalid
The coronation of Newton le Roi Gingrich, as Republican nominee let alone as (shudder) President, is far from a done deal. He’s like the rest of the field in that he can’t withstand real scrutiny either. I’m pretty confident he’ll come to some kind of pathetic collapse, brought on on by his lack of money and campaign organization. He’s already done it, six months ago, and I know he’s got another one in him.
Benjamin Franklin
There’s the rub. He will acquire vast sums ala Citizens United, but his piss-poor people skills are emblematic of the New Whigs.
“Property 1st, people, 2nd”
EconWatcher
@Amir Khalid:
Hope you’re right. Time is kinda running out, though.
One thing that gives me some comfort is this: Chances are, Gingrich is having an affair right now. [And by right now, I don’t mean in 2011. I mean right now, as I type this.]
He’s just become the front runner, so recent transgressions may not yet have had a chance to bubble to the surface. Let’s hope they’re there, and will soon appear.
RossInDetroit
@Amir Khalid:
Right. And the only thing that’s kept Newt in the race so far is lack of attention. If he attains his desired place as front runner the scrutiny, questions and digging up the past will make him nuts. He wants to be the New Newt, not the Clinton attacking, wife leaving Old Newt. But the media will dig all of that up and it will irritate the hell out of him.
Tyro
Nothing against WGC, but you know how easy it was to get tenure in the 1970s?
My understanding is that Newt didn’t publish anything while he was a professor. He liked to schmooze more than he liked to produce research.
BGinCHI
@EconWatcher: Newt’s weekly diary for this past week.
Wed: Shopping and Thank You card for Herman Cain.
Thurs: Book signings, witty apothegms, banter over large meal.
Fri: Mani/pedi.
Sat: Debate. Note: be less Dickish. They like us now.
Sun: Do the nasty with mistress.
BGinCHI
@Tyro: Yep, sounds like he was running for office the second he got his pencils put in the tray. Hard to get work done when you’re gladhanding 12/5 (weekends and evenings for binge eating and chasing tail).
Napoleon
@sharl:
Jack A. was an interesting interview on that show. The only place it looked to me where he shaded was when he was asked about how he dissed clients and he denied it without explaining the text of the e-mails (though he mentioned the e-mails) regarding Indian tribes. The only way he could square that circle is by saying that yes he said the stuff, yes it was disrespectful but he was sucking up to the guy he was writing to who he knew to be a racist.
The other part where I think he would go factually off the rail is basically stuff involving his political philosophy. He basically said lobbing was corrupt but somehow, in part, his solution is to let states take care of issues because if the feds are out of them there is no reason to lobbying them. Pure rightwing BS that ignores the fact that the problem will migrate to the states where you have even less oversight.
Donald G
With apologies to Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys, a little song for the Gingrich campaign:
I am Speaker Newt Gingrich.
I just love the filthy rich.
Soon I will be pre-zi-dent.
Hopenchange will fade away.
I will be fuhrer someday.
Your kids’ll scrub toilets for the Master race
As you worship my doughy face.
Speaker Newt uber Alles.
Speaker Newt uber Alles.
Speaker Newt uber Alles
Uber Alles Speaker New-ew-ew-ewt.
Newt, call me, baby. (does phone gesture with thumb and pinky finger) I can do for you what Mark Block did for Herman Cain.
BGinCHI
@Donald G: You should sue him if at the holidays he goes on a Holiday in Cambodia.
Donald G
@BGinCHI:
I’m more worried about Biafra suing me for the parody, actually.
kd bart
I’m waiting for Newt to end a debate by saying “Say goodnight to the bad guy.” ala Tony Montana
vtr
Calista = Johnny Winter in 1968 w/o the guitar skills.
Separately, everyone talks about the seemingly weak GOP field and how Obama could be vulnerable, but, given that, have you read any perceptive discussion about why no one else is running? It strikes me as strange.
Donald G
A little more for the road:
Now it is two-zero-one-four…
Knock,knock at your front door…
It’s the cross-bearin’ secret police.
They’ve come for your Mexican neice.
March quietly to the camp.
Santorum and Bachmann are hooked to an amp.
You start to worry as you look to the tower…
For you’ll soon come to feel Newt’s power.
[REPEAT CHORUS]
Jenny
I’m suspicious of steve’s judgement because he got it so wrong in 2008. He was constantly emoing, saying McCain was a sure winner.
RossInDetroit
@Jenny:
I can sorta forgive anyone who thought America would elect a GOP War Hero(tm) over a black man. A lot of people I know were very pessimistic.
CarolDuhart2
@BGinCHI: And West Georgia College doesn’t sound like it would be a place where the people above you were Rhodes Scholars and world beaters. Getting tenure at a place like that back then probably was as long as you published something decent once and got along with everybody. Newt apparently couldn’t even manage tenure at a 3rd rate college.
FlipYrWhig
@CarolDuhart2: From the Frontline timeline I linked above, it doesn’t sound like he even _tried_ to do the work that would result in getting tenure. Becoming a politico was the objective all along.
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: Why don’t the conservatives notice that Newt has never worked in the Private Sector? Isn’t that their litmus test for Managerial Competence or whatever the hell they think makes someone good at something?
He’s been in school or pretending to be a professor or a politician or a fake novelist.
Jobs created?
0
Tony J
@vtr:
Offhand I can’t recall anyone doing an in depth study on why none of the ‘serious’ GOP Stars showed any interest in running next year, but the prevailing wisdom seems to be that the ones who might see it as ‘their time’ either –
a) Don’t think Obama is anywhere near as vulnerable as the horserace-obsessed pundits would like people to believe, and don’t want to soil their brand with defeat.
b) Don’t think they could successfully pivot from a Primary campaign to running in the General because of the 110% Proof Crazy they’d have to wallow in to get the nomination. Again, protecting their own personal brand from too close an association with what the Republican Party Base has become over the last generation.
c) Are smart enough to know that the U.S. works best – for them – in a cycle of Republican Looting/Democratic Restocking of the National Shelves/Republican Looting, and there simply hasn’t been a long enough period of Democratic control for the prize to be worth the effort yet.
d), a combination of a, b and c.
CarolDuhart2
@vtr: Good point. For all of the bravado, why have the better Republicans decide to sit this one out? I’ve run across that $1 billion haul Obama is supposed to raise this time around. I imagine that a lot of them figured that having to first raise a ton to beat Romney in the primary, then turn around and face a well-funded and well rested Obama was something they would rather not do this time, especially when 2016 was likely an open year like 2008. Then they would face an elderly Biden or a newcomer on the national scene who would also have to go therough a competitive primary.
And it’s not just the money. Obama has a second-to-none canvassing and organizing organization that was set up everywhere and can flood the zone with volunteers and organizers. It’s the largest ever, and they doubt that the evangelical 72 hour crowd could match it. Indeed, the 72 hour crowd was flummoxed because OFA was canvassing for weeks in advance getting out the early vote.
They figure that those things will be off the table in 2016, and the economy improved.
SiubhanDuinne
@BGinCHI:
What a beautiful thought. Too bad there’s a law* against having the Prez/VP running mates from the same state. That’s why Dick “Dick” Cheney moved back to Wyoming in 2000 after having spent years and years in Texas.
*I’m not sure whether that’s in the Constitution or was a law passed by Congress at some point, or is simply so embedded in tradition that it essentially has the force of law. Someone here will know, and if nobody speaks up I will wander off and ask my friend Mr. Google.
suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I understand it. Depending on how one interprets things, they’re technically polytheists, and yet they insist that they’re Christian. This pisses off the Evangelicals, because they believe that they’re the ones who decide who’s Christian and who isn’t.
To be honest, that’s one issue where I think the Evangelicals are right. Sarah Palin pissed me off when she said she was a feminist. It matters what words mean.
BGinCHI
@SiubhanDuinne: Wow. Had no idea.
We’ll be the poorer for the loss of entertainment.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s a Constitutional requirement. It made more sense when there were 13 states and the point was to diffuse executive power so no one state would dominate.
SiubhanDuinne
@BGinCHI:
It goes way back, according to Wiki:
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
That’s kind of what I recalled, in the dim recesses of the cloaca I call my mind, and Wikipedia has confirmed it. Thanks, Yutsy.
DS
When I first read this headline I thought it was about Connie Mack, the Republican douchebag running for Senate in Florida. I was over at RedState getting my daily chuckles a while ago and he is incorporating a baseball into his campaign logo-thing. He is the great-grandson of Connie Mack. Great-grandson. First, could this possible sway any of the senile old fucks in Florida to vote for him, and second, isn’t there a statute of limitations on this shit? I know we love our famous dynasties but really?
BGinCHI
@DS: Thanks a lot. Now I’m hungry for Chili Mac.
Dom Phenom
Ha. That must mean that Romney wins the Vanilla Ice position in the Republican field.
priscianusjr
@MattF:
Calouste
@vtr:
Yes. One thing that stands out is that there is no sitting GOP Senator running. That is for the first time in a very, very long time. Even in 1992, when everyone thought Bush I was a lock for reelection, there were 2 Senators running in the Dem primaries.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Newt isn’t fit to wash Nixon’s truss.
Matt McIrvin
There is no law against the President and Vice-President being from the same state. It’s just that, constitutionally, if a Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidate are from the same state, that state’s electors can’t give their electoral votes to both of them. If the state in question is Texas, that’s pretty important.
Catsy
@Yutsano:
It’ll be even worse if he has to face off in a debate against Obama’s preternatural calm.
I don’t recall who said that Newt was “a stupid man’s idea of what a smart man sounds like”, or something to that effect–but it was spot on. Remember that shining, glorious day when Obama rolled into the Republican Congress and pwned them in their own house? An Obama/Gingrich debate would be that cranked up to 11.