__
Thanks to commentor Rome Again for a reminder that January 21 seems to be a very special day in Newton Leroy Gingrich’s history:
House Reprimands, Penalizes Speaker
By John E. Yang, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 22 1997; Page A01
__
The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House’s 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.
__
The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday’s vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.
__
“Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.). “If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment.”…
No doubt the Swollen Amphibian would tell us ‘but that was in another century, and besides, the Gipper (St. Ronnie of the Eleventh Commandment) is dead’. However, Erick “Voice of the GOP Gated Community” Erickson is not so triumphant as some of his red-blooded RedState fellows:
Mitt and Newt will both have trouble beating Barack Obama. Mitt’s trouble will come from Obama. Newt’s trouble from himself. But right now, the base doesn’t care….
__
We’re now confronted with a designated front runner, Mitt Romney, who got less votes in Iowa in 2012 than he got in 2008 and who lost South Carolina. His reason for being somehow remains that he is “electable.”
__
If you read a lot of the Republican commentary coming out of Washington even before the polls closed, suddenly South Carolina is irrelevant and the hick rubes of the Palmetto state are just petulant children.
__
Actually, like with Iowa, it is a rather desperate scream to get another player on the field. It is a red flag. It is the giant “Danger” sign ahead for the general election.
__
Newt Gingrich’s rise has a lot to do with Newt Gingrich’s debate performance. But it has just as much to do with a party base in revolt against its thought and party leaders in Washington, DC. The base is revolting because they swept the GOP back into relevance in Washington just under two years ago and they have been thanked with contempt ever since…
There are few imperatives stronger among the gated-community demographic than What will the neighbors think? And right now, it would seem that Mr. Erickson suspects his DFH neighbors are pointing and laughing. About that, I believe, he would be correct.
Baud
The only avenue left for the GOP is to nominate a corporation to head the Republican ticket.
I think the chances are 80-20 that they can get five justices to go for it.
Betty Cracker
Asshole Assholeson could have stopped right there.
Gilles de Rais
I’m not laughing. I think Gingrich is a sick fuck who would send me to a death camp with no compunctions at all. I think he’s unelectable, but the thing that’s got me spooked is not him, but rather his voters.
Pavlov's Dog
Re Erickson – What has been interesting is watching his campaign analysis on CNN versus what he is writing on his blog. His CNN analysis has been (IMO) concise and mostly opinion free. He has offered some good insights. Take out the last sentence on what is quoted from his blog, and I would mostly agree.
rob!
I love reading the comments section on Red State. Its like overhearing conversations in the Arkham Asylum commissary minus the sharp suits.
jl
@Betty Cracker: yes.
I will note down the time and date, since I agreed with something this Voice of the Gated Community said:
“The [GOP] base is revolting”
I also made notes of the time and date of two good points Bachman made during her campaign, but I lost them. So I need another talisman of good luck for the GOP primary disaster.
Thymezone
Way to go RA!
Sly
You said it. They stink on ice.
hildebrand
“Return of the Giant Hogweed”
Rome Again
Thanks Anne. This is going to get very interesting.
jrg
What’s congress’s approval rating? How hard would it be to tie Noot to the current congressional dysfunction?
What a fucking clown.
GregB
Does anyone remember right after McCain picked Palin when the GOP-ers started getting into fever pitches at campaign rallies with old women weeping about Obama being a Muslim and crowds yelling rather untoward things?
McCain actually stepped in and dialed it back some.
If the same thing were to happen with Gingrich he’d dial it up to eleven.
Get ready for the ugly America.
slippy
Well, listening to (or reading of) self-anointed expert pricks like Erickson gag on his own bullshit is enough to make my day.
Listening to them all howl like forlorn puppies left out in the freezing winter will make my year. And that’s where the GOP is going to be after this election — the howling, fucking wilderness.
I continue to assert that we are witnessing the death throes of an American political party.
Rome Again
@GregB:
Oh, I’m counting on it getting ugly. They can’t help themselves, and nothing would turn off the soft middle more.
Yutsano
@slippy:
I saw what you did there.
Firebert
Wait, so they’re trying to become the Republican Presidential nominee? I thought they were trying to win the Goatse Award for World’s Largest Asshole.
Rome Again
@Yutsano:
and you liked it, didn’t you? :P
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB:
McCain, you see, understood how poorly that played outside the 27%. He was thinking about winning, and understood that to win, you can’t pull that shit. It turns too many outside the 27% off.
You have to remember, these are people who didn’t know how to react when their VP nominee talked about her husband being the proud member of a union. The applause line for that was muted. If it’s not their red meat, they get confused and fretful.
Yutsano
@Rome Again: I chortled. That can be interpreted as a sign of enjoyment yes. :)
Martin
Honestly, the GOP only exists due to inertia at this stage. If you tried to create this party fresh anew, you could never do it. They’re trying to operate on three orthogonal axes – religion, race, and money. They’re all positions of privilege, but the intersection of the 3 is a pretty small population, and they can’t help but exclude most voters.
Where are Ron Paul’s voters going to go after Newts little rant? Any of them who happen to not be strongly religious aren’t welcome. I think they’re just as likely to go to Obama as Newt, and more likely to go 3rd party or go home than either of those. That’s 12% of their base, basically gone. You can’t run a party on 27%.
The GOP is going to lose big in November. After 2008, I had hoped they’d realign, but they didn’t. They doubled down. They’re going to lose even worse this time. Who knows what they’ll do in 2014.
mclaren
It is.
Oh, I assure you, it is so intensely revolting…
Hill Dweller
Steve Schmidt said on MSNBC that if Newt won FL, there would be the biggest Republican party meltdown we’ve ever seen. The Money would try to destroy him.
I think Newt has all sorts of skeletons in his closet that people in Washington/Republican party know about, but the general public doesn’t. It’s really the only explanation for their palpable fear of Gingrich winning the nomination.
barath
@Rome Again:
I dunno…maybe I lost my faith in swing state independents who, let’s not kid ourselves, basically are the voters who decide our elections. They elected / re-elected Bush/Cheney. (Doesn’t matter if Ohio and Florida were stolen—the end result was that Bush was president.)
If that’s the soft middle we’re counting on to see through Newt’s easy demagoguery, we better be worried and be hitting the streets registering every new Dem possible.
Benjamin Franklin
The Tea Party has rearranged the chromosomes of the GOP in perpertuity.
They will live with this reality without any redemptive self-awareness.
They own it.
Martin
@GregB: The most remarkable part of this cycle so far has been the crowd participation in the debates. That never existed before. It’s entirely new as of this cycle, and it’s like cancer. The GOP needs that to stop, or it’s going to kill them.
I know the jackals all feel entitled to their own private ‘You lie!’ moment, but if we get to the first presidential debate and part of the crowd cat-calls the President, the GOP will lose about 100% of the independent vote. It’ll get ugly.
WereBear (itouch)
In light of recent developments, I think Romney is just going through the motions, and that is going to doom him.
Why was the Base so disappointed with McCain? Because he doesn’t get them excited. Why did they love Palin? Because she did.
The Base does not love the intellectual thrill of a good wonky plan. The Base does not want Improvements or Care. The Base doesn’t know how things work so they don’t long for more efficiency.
What the Base wants is some silver tongue describing the slaying of their enemies because of how great they are. That they are perfect just the way they are. They want someone to step forward like Samson, brandishing the jawbone of an ass, and promise them smiting.
I can’t see Romney doing that. Ever. So they don’t like him.
The Dangerman
@Hill Dweller:
The Money will try to destroy him starting tomorrow morning…
…but Romney’s 1040 Follies will remain the center of attention. If he can deal with whatever the hell’s in there, he’s the nominee; if he can’t, well, he’s still probably the nominee. The Money will eventually destroy Newt.
Anoniminous
@Martin:
They should do OK in 2014. There’s about a 42% voter turn out in non-presidential year elections so 27% is a fairly solid majority.
Betty Cracker
@Hill Dweller: Is it skeletons in his closet or his tendency to become even more of grotesque, egotistic toad when he feels his fortunes rising? Could be both. In any case, I predict he will step on his own dick, and soon.
Martin
Oh, and I can’t think of anything that will better motivate a Democratic GOTV effort than the prospect of President Gingrich. You will get epic Democratic turnout.
Pillsy
Are those assholes really going to nominate Newt Gingrich? Did they think McCain did to well? Do they long for the halcyon days when Barack Obama straight crushed Alan Keyes?
barath
@The Dangerman:
Why will the money need to destroy Newt? Maybe they’ll decide to buy him out. After all, Fannie Mae and the ethanol consortium bought him out, and for pennies compared to what Wall Street can put down.
AA+ Bonds
I never thought I’d see the day where Erick Erickson gets it right while pretty much everyone else is in denial (except for the first bit about “problems” which probably refers to positive/negative split from polls done a week ago and thus means nothing at all)
AA+ Bonds
@Martin:
Why is that, please explain
AA+ Bonds
People are rarely driven to the polls based on their distaste for the opposite candidate
MikeJ
@AA+ Bonds: I believe he is saying that the out party always makes gains in midterms, so if Gingrich were to win this year Democrats should do well in the congress in two years.
Villago Delenda Est
Back in the 70’s, in the wake of Watergate, some reactionaries got together and decided the problem with America is it didn’t have a truly reactionary political party. I mean, look at Nixon…he gave us the EPA, he imposed wage and price controls, he wanted to put together a national health insurance system that would be denounced today as the spawn of Stalin, wildly to the left of what even Hillary Clinton proposed in the 90’s. Both major parties were coalitions that didn’t hew necessarily to a liberal/conservative central ideology.
So, they decided that they’d have to take over one of the existing parties, to get the apparatus under their control and make that party one of ideological purity.
They chose the GOP as that party.
Now, 40 years later, they’ve got it…and by gosh, it can’t hold together. Reagan gave them a unifying figure that they’ve never been able to replicate. Their ideology will not sell to the majority of the population, so they have to cloak it in a variety of other issues to bring people in, and they can’t satisfy them for fear of losing them from their ultimate goal. They do this in particular with the social conservative types, particularly on the issue of abortion. If they give them what they want, they’ll go back to looking after their economic self interest, and that is bad news for the reactionaries, who have the goal of doing nothing short of erasing the Enlightenment itself.
AA+ Bonds
That’s why the anybody-but-Romney explanation for SC is probably wrong
Rome Again
@barath:
That was before the economic meltdown that Bush left us. That was before the reprehensible actions we’ve witnessed in the last three years.
RSA
@rob!:
Judging from those comments, Josh Marshall is right about one of the main reasons Gingrich is getting support–some people think he’ll deliver a smackdown to Obama in the Presidential debates. They’re even fantasizing about Obama trying to avoid or cancel the debates. I mean, they’re hanging all their hopes on a 1.5 hour head-to-head match.
Martin
@Anoniminous: That assumes the party holds. I’m not so sure. The GOP cannot survive with only 14% of their voters being under 40. They’re not even remotely close to replacing their voters that die each year. They’re being outflanked by the Latino population. The bigotry plays to a smaller and smaller audience each year.
At some point the GOP is going to have to circle back, but how? Once they do, they’re going to lose part of that 27% in order to catch a small piece of a large independent/Democratic pie, but that’s going to take a few election loss cycles to achieve. They’re going to have to back someone like Ron Paul, or a Lincoln Chafee all the way through to try and redefine the party. They’re going to lose all their energy when they do, and their best bet to make this move is in an off cycle.
AA+ Bonds
@MikeJ:
Then why does he say (emphasis mine)
AA+ Bonds
@rob!:
Keep reading them because they will tell you a shit ton more about what is going on in the primaries than Balloon Juice will
Gretchen
Who is the singer?
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker:
He needs to put off stepping on his own dick until at least April.
Then it’s dance party on the weenie time!
The Dangerman
@barath:
Perhaps, but Newt may be getting a taste of the Big Prize, which is getting the good seat on AF1 and cool digs in DC; he might not sell (out) so readily.
barath
@Rome Again:
It was after we went into Iraq on false pretenses and the war was already going terribly by the 2004 election…
And in 2010 the swing independents who bought GOP nonsense combined with low Dem turnout swept crazy people into office across the country.
Just saying that swing independent voters (among whom Obama has high unfavorables) are not folks who I’d count on to be turned off by Gingrich.
AA+ Bonds
It seems that everyone was as wrong as me about the outcome of SC but I’m the only one with the genitals to admit it and that it matters that everyone got it wrong
Everyone else is in Judith Miller Tom Friedman la la land about how Of Course This Was Going To Happen
rikyrah
@Gilles de Rais:
I feel you Gilles.
I feel you.
AA+ Bonds
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that liberal blogs are basically a substandard New York Times opinion page
Rome Again
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Flip Flop Romney came out against the condition the economy was in prior to November 2008 and used Newt’s time at Freddy Mac against the 99%? In my dreams, I know, but, stranger things have happened.
Martin
@RSA: That’s what I figured a few hours ago – the GOP has given up on actually winning the Presidency, instead they’re going to elect a martyr – someone who will go out in a blaze of glory.
We’re back to the Sarah Palin decision. We don’t know how to win this, so I’ll just chuck the ball downfield and hope to God someone can catch it. That’s Newt.
Either that or the GOP really is blindly believing their own propaganda that Obama is a stupid, teleprompter-dependent, soçialist and that Newt will have his way with him. Maybe both.
Egg Berry
Because his neighbors are always laughing at him.
AA+ Bonds
@barath:
Motherfuckin exactly
Finally someone stops hiding under their pillow here
barath
@The Dangerman:
I think the selling out might more have to do with what giveaways he promises them for once he wins…so I doubt he’ll see a downside. I bet Romney has already had conversations in quiet rooms about how many Wall Street execs will get to control the levers at the Treasury dept. (Not that there haven’t been Wall Streeters in every administration since even before FDR, but that they’ll get to decide policy.)
My hope is that Newt implodes near the end of the primaries and Romney limps over the finish line. Newt is guaranteed to implode whenever he’s in the public eye, but the question is whether he’d implode in time in a general to avoid him winning first.
pseudonymous in nc
Courtesy of Sullivan’s liveblog, an eye-splitter of a poll number: the GOP primary turnout is 99% white. That’s in a state where 28% of registered voters are black.
Rome Again
@AA+ Bonds: I wasn’t wrong. Sorry, not everyone was wrong. I read Free Republic on an almost daily basis and I knew where this was headed weeks ago.
AA+ Bonds
@Martin:
The GOP believes that many swing voters either believe this or are ready to believe it; they are right
AA+ Bonds
Anyone who compares Newt Gingrich to Sarah Palin is so wrong that they must be in complete terrified denial
Rome Again
@pseudonymous in nc:
Free Republic was citing two days ago that only 2% of African Americans in SC vote Republican (I’m not responsible for that number, I’m merely telling you what I saw), so they apparently lost half of them. :P
AA+ Bonds
Liberals seem to believe that Gingrich would have to demonstrate to liberals that he is smarter than Obama to win debates against Obama – also very wrong
Rome Again
@AA+ Bonds:
She did endorse him.
Mike in NC
Asshole of America, indeed.
barath
@AA+ Bonds:
That’s nonsense. There’s no way swing voters believe that sort of fox news propaganda.
Though it may not matter. Swing voters aren’t highly informed careful voters who follow the news and decide. They’re often late to decide, and they’re going to see a lot of ads. The ads will surely pummel President Obama as they will Newt. But Newt’s unfavorables are already high. All it’ll take is some event to break Newt’s way.
Anoniminous
@Martin:
Over the next 10 – 15 years, I agree. The current GOP – the “Southern Strategy GOP” – is (literally) dying. This may – I’m not an actuary – make a difference as soon as 2016 but I don’t think enough of them are going to croak between now and 2014 to make that much of a difference.
GregB
The South Carolinian GOP exit polled as 98% white.
I never knew they were that diverse.
Link.
AAA+ Bonds
Oh, why oh why won’t anyone pay attention to my scathing, incisive commentary? I mean, I care so much about a bunch of strangers commenting on a political blog late on a Saturday night. I hate them because I need their approval so much.
Chris
@barath:
The swing voters are the guys who, as I put it, want to elect Republicans but get Democratic results.
See also the way Gallup polls have pretty consistently placed “Generic Republican” ahead of Obama, but Obama ahead of just about every actual Republican.
AA+ Bonds
@Rome Again:
I have a hard time believing you but I will readily accept a link as evidence that you predicted a Gingrich win in SC – and I will listen more carefully to what you have to say in the future
AA+ Bonds
@Rome Again:
. . . I hope that wasn’t a serious post
WereBear (itouch)
@Martin: That’s an excellent summary; for a sane party. But aren’t even the people who bankroll them crazy? The Koch Brothers long for the days of the Magna Carta and Newt found a sugar daddy for his campaign.
No one is even trying to touch the brake.
AA+ Bonds
I mean I understand that Sarah Palin is also associated with reality TV but that does not make reality TV’s chance of success with America at large the same as Sarah Palin’s
hildebrand
@AA+ Bonds: Good god, man – did you intern at The New Republic? I haven’t witnessed this kind of defensive crouch since the halcyon days of, well, yesterday, likely as not. Only someone from the TNR staff could possibly see a Newt victory as a portent of doom for the Democrats.
On the other hand, perhaps you are right, perhaps Newt Gingrich, with his incredibly high favorability ratings, will score a victory over the sitting President of the US during a time of modest growth in the economy – all because he as the ability to offer smart-alec comments to third string talking-heads.
AA+ Bonds
@WereBear (itouch):
See, this is another good post in a sea of dross – the race now hinges on a small group of insane Republican billionaires who can easily outspend Romney if they so choose
pseudonymous in nc
@AA+ Bonds:
We get it: you’re dancing in a cornfield tonight whacking at straw men. You must be very cold.
PeakVT
It think what we saw tonight more like Night of the Return of the Revenge of the Lost Cause. The Living Dead Gnoot was just the vessel. A mendacious, corpulent, bloviating vessel, but still just a vessel.
AA+ Bonds
If people had read Blinded by the Right like they should they would know this
AA+ Bonds
@pseudonymous in nc:
Blah blah blah get the fuck out of debate class, America hangs in the balance and Americans are not impressed by that business
Villago Delenda Est
@AA+ Bonds:
Newt’s been “debating” against the lame.
Going up against Obama is a whole ‘nother game.
AA+ Bonds
Gingrich just won SC,
The primary season just became immeasurably harder for Romney’s campaign,
everyone’s model failed and as usual, everyone will continue defending their model until they can pretend like they were right all along, especially to themselves
FlipYrWhig
Gingrich seems to be running a campaign based entirely on winger radio memes from 2009. “Czars,” for fuck’s sake? Saul Alinsky? That seems like it’ll wear about as well as Lindsey Lohan’s career.
The Dangerman
@pseudonymous in nc:
“Gentlemen, start your whacking”
/The Simpson’s Whacking Day episode
Hill Dweller
I’ve repeatedly said that, relative to the readily available info, the American electorate is the most ignorant in recorded human history. But, I have to believe that the people running the Republican are palpably terrified of Gingrich winning the nomination for a reason.
These are people who have no problem running a race-baiting candidate if they thought he/she can win, but they’re scared to death of Gingrich.
pseudonymous in nc
@AA+ Bonds:
I assumed that SC was gNewt’s for the taking before the primaries began, given Romney’s performance in the state in 2008, limping in behind Fred Thompson. The Romney polling blip last weekend didn’t convince me he’d make it to the finish line, especially being exposed to SC television feeds and thus a barrage of ads. There are two “search” facilities in the sidebar.
Suggestion: if you have a coherent point, make it.
pseudonymous in nc
@AA+ Bonds:
Blah blah blah do less meth on weekends.
PeakVT
@FlipYrWhig: Let’s hope Gnoot doesn’t pose nude when his campaign is nearing its end.
FlipYrWhig
@pseudonymous in nc: Every so often AA+ goes into one of these Fredo Corleone funks.
Chris
@Hill Dweller:
Sure they are. They remember the 1990s, they know how this ends. He was a fucking disaster back then, not just for the nation but for the Party and the Cause as well (probably part of the reason why Bush had to run as a “moderate”), and no one who ever had to interact with him professionally remembers it fondly.
FlipYrWhig
Remember how big Glenn Beck was? How long did that last, and how many people were taking it seriously by the end?
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@PeakVT:
A G-Noot in a G-string would probably ensure the demise of the GOP with great speed.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Martin: I am afraid, that long before that happens, the GOP will become to the USA, like the (Afrikaner)Nationalist Party was to South Africa. A party dedicated to restoring the glory days of White America. The party will be the roosting nest of the National Alliance types. The ugliness has not even hit rock bottom maybe for a decade or two. As for South Carolina, there is a reason Sherman wanted SC to be devastated worse than Georgia.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@AA+ Bonds: You mean like all of those climate change models that fail to predict snow in Texas? Actually, I don’t think everyone’s model failed. And even for those that did, we’ve seen Gingrich in action before. A good performance in South Carolina means what in the general election? McCain won the South Carolina primary, and won the state in the general election.
My model failed because I was worried that the people that have been backing Perry would keep propping him up. Other than the fact that he has to come back to Texas, I’m glad I was wrong. But it’s not really that hard to see what will happen to Gingrich in the general election, if he makes it that far.
Mike in NC
@pseudonymous in nc:
AA+ Bonds as always is a fucking idiot.
Hill Dweller
At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to the economy. If people feel like it is getting better, Obama will be very tough to beat. If they don’t feel like things are improving, or Europe collapses and stops our recovery, all bets are off.
pseudonymous in nc
If you look at Romney’s totals in 2008, it looks as if he could only add 5-10% to the people who voted for him last time. (His SC base: the rich people in Hilton Head.) Whatever support there was for him based on last weekend’s polling was incredibly soft.
Scott P.
Obama’s favorable-unfavorable score is +2. Gingrich’s is -32. Let me repeat: minus 32. Everybody outside the 27% is turned off by Gingrich.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Scott P.: Gingrich’s unfavorable rating goes up the more attention he gets. Shocking. But I’m sure we’re doomed.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Gotta love this graph from real clear politics showing Obama v. Gingrich.
jl
If fate decrees that we have to face the risk of a Newt candidacy, rather than Mitt, I don’t worry too much about Newt’s visionary schtick.
It is true that much of the US electorate is unbelievably low info, and seems to be proud of it, and they love going with their gut, and the idea that a politician just might be lying to appeal to people seems to be beyond many of them, if their gut feelings get enough flattery.
Some on like Bush II might be able to win, even though on an intellectual level he loses debates. But Bush had some good intentions, Bush was dim enough to believe some of the BS, and Bush had discipline, at least during the campaign.
I think Newt will, sooner or later, reveal himself to be a blundering, mean spirited nonsensical fool, an empty suit. Kind of like McCain did during the financial panic. Which will spell LOSER to the voters.
I don’t think Obama will have Gore problems, partly because Obama is more self confident, has more self control, and more ability to win sympathy from the audeience, he has the discipline and quickness to empathize with people and position himself so that they see him seeing things through their eyes.
And, if Biden is the VP, and Obama has the sense to turn him loose, will repeatedly gut, ridicule and spoof Newt from long distance with lots of dismissive ‘off the cuff’ sidewalk analyses, some disguised as BidenGaffes.
Rome Again
@barath:
You fail to realize that they are being challenged on all those things that the crazies they voted in are doing. Anti-union, anti-education, anti-democratic voting rights… they are seeing a party that overreached and the people who are living in those conditions and others outside of those states watching the citizens protests and wondering if they’re going to be introduced to the same – I’m sorry, I think they have plenty to get fired up about.
barath
@Rome Again:
That definitely makes sense, and I hope you’re right.
AA+ Bonds
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Thanks for admitting you were wrong – although you should really thank yourself, because it gives you a leg up on the rest of these yahoos.
See, I am angry that I was wrong, I am pissed like all of you should be, it means I lacked knowledge or that my theory was wrong – my guess is what I lacked were proper donor numbers in SC and proper understanding of Romney’s money their prior to New Hampshire
But most people will follow their nature and either
1) laugh it off, say it doesn’t matter, keep making the same mistakes
or
2) get really fuckin defensive when I point out the right thing to do is to question their basic assumptions
slippy
@ AA Bonds: Gingrich is a dream for the Democrats. His last public excursion as a “Leader” ended with him caricatured as a petty cry-baby, readily, easily and completely identified with the harsh partisanship in Washington and the cause of the government shutdown, and as a pathetic loser who can’t let it go in the Lewinsky affair. His approval rating was often in the 30’s, and his unfavorables as high as 65%. He is NOT actually much good at that whole “politician” thing, and has become far more extreme with age, and he will pander heavily to the Teabaggers as he has already proven.
WereBear (itouch)
I guess they all forgot the reasons they voted against him previously; when he crashed and burned over the false rumor he had fathered an African-American child out of wedlock. They have the attention spans of mayflies.
AA+ Bonds
@pseudonymous in nc:
LOL!!
If you were having trouble before, see immediately previous post
mclaren
@Hill Dweller:
Holy crap. We’ve heard about the adultery, the bribery, the censure, the telling-the-wife-with-cancer-he-needs-a-divorce…
What the hell could be worse than that?
I’m thinking we’d have to go to, like…cannibalism…three midgets, five goats, and a pound of animal stimulant…human sacrifice…
The mind boggles.
AA+ Bonds
@slippy:
AA+ Bonds
We are eighteen years out from 1994, people
Jeffro
This is about what you’d get if you happened to venture a guess that the GOP was split , bigtime, between its corporatist wing and its fundamentalist wing.
Eventually Romney (the corporatist) will win…and maybe even have to put Gingrich on the ticket as VP.
Given that, or almost any other scenario, I’m liking Obama’s chances more by the day…
Rome Again
@slippy:
Oh, and don’t forget, he’s written LOTS and LOTS of books, some of them about setting up a theocratic state.
AA+ Bonds
If you need evidence of what’s changed since 1994, Gingrich just turned cheating on his wife into the biggest Republican political victory so far this year
kay
AA+Bonds, put it in perspective.
Mitt Romney is a much weaker candidate than anyone predicted 6 months ago, and their only alternative is Newt Gingrich.
That’s not bad. Not a bad start for Obama.
Imagine if they had a good candidate!
You would be having a heart attack :)
Mike in NC
@jl:
I worked in DC when Newt was the “back bench bomb thrower” who shut down the federal government in a fit and later resigned in disgrace. He’s always been regarded as an obstructionist piece of shit ever since.
Rome Again
@mclaren:
Plans for theocracy. I heard tinges of it tonight in his speech.
AA+ Bonds
@Jeffro:
What matters here is that recent polls did not show this – since 2006 or so they have shown steady decline in Republicans who identify themselves primarily as social conservatives, and corresponding rise in the party’s small-government anti-labor Bircher wing
Even Fox News has been crafting its pageview-gathering stories based on this premise, as far as I can tell
AA+ Bonds
@kay:
They actually have a few different alternatives and I feel that people are once again underestimating Gingrich’s skill with a flamethrower – it is not a great mistake to make
Rome Again
@AA+ Bonds:
You’re not looking at the middle, you’re looking at the base. The base would accept him getting caught with both a live boy AND a dead girl.
AA+ Bonds
@Rome Again:
Yes, that’s my point – those sorts of affairs turned Republican leader after Republican leader out on their ear in the 1990s because they were using the issue as a hammer against Clinton
Things change, and sometimes they change as much as things changed for Nixon between 1960 and 1968
WereBear (itouch)
I don’t think Newt will be able to win in the general; he appeals only to the Republican base. I don’t think he can pivot left and his new fans don’t want him too.
I think a lot of people, myself included, figured on Romney because he was the most sane candidate. Did not occur to me that this might be why he won’t get the nomination.
Rome Again
@AA+ Bonds:
Go on any rightwinger thread and set up a pro position on abortion (use the personhood amendment if you want). You’ll see those SoCons come out in droves.
freelancer
@efgoldman:
Thank you for reposting that. Even if you befucked the formatting as you said. I need a cigarette.
Mike
@jl:
Yeah, they stink on ice! Pull!!
jl
@Mike in NC:
Problem is that what makes Newt more likely to lose in the general, is also what would make him an absolute nightmare as a president.
I will throw AA Bonds one bone: Newt might capture the oldster ‘keep the government out of my Medicare’ crowd. He has cultivated them. Newt has spun a nice little swindle for them, and some are eating it up. So, if weak minded old people are the swing demo this election, that might mean trouble.
My hope is that this is also the demographic that would remember what a fool the guy was in Congress.
So, if white bigots and weak minded elderly are the swing demographics, Newt might do better than expected. I hope they are not.
But, then I an not rooting for either Newt or Mitt to win the GOP primary fight, I am rooting for both of them to lose the general in the process of winning the primary in the depths of the vicious and foolish GOP rump.
I really hope Newt and Mitt just tear each other apart, destroy each other, over the next few months.
Lyrebird
@AA+ Bonds: Sir Bonds, I think I’d agree with you a lot more strongly if you weren’t so confidently describing “all of [us]” like there’s just one opinion or reaction here.
Some people didn’t make any predictions at all. My “model” has not yet gotten un-broken — broken from the knowledge (back in 2008) that 40% of US voters would pull the lever for Walnuts/Grifter — so I don’t assume I can say what will happen.
kay
No, I see what you’re saying, AA+Bonds, but I’m not sure running around in circles yelling “FIRE” is a good strategy.
Just let it play out.
One of them is going to be the nominee.
Not much we can do about that.
I’ll take them over a genuinely good GOP candidate.
I think older Dem voters DO remember Gingrich, and they hate him, because they loved Clinton.
Just give it a couple of weeks.
Lyrebird
@efgoldman: Still a very righteous (and illuminating) rant. Thank you.
Rome Again
@AA+ Bonds:
Who the hell is paying you for these posts? Take your stupidity somewhere else, dude. You obviously don’t know how to read. The word BASE does NOT equal the world MIDDLE or INDEPENDENT.
The BASE is fired up. The MIDDLE/INDEPENDENTS are getting screwed by the system these rightwingers are trying to put in place. They know what’s going on. Ask Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona (where I am)… Ask Nevada where the crazy Second Amendment Remedies candidate destroyed their GOP. People ARE seeing what’s going on, and they do talk to their friends and family, near and far (you can thank social networking for that). Have you not seen the protests? Have you not seen the petition drives? Take your meds, you need them.
dogwood
@AA+ Bonds:
Ok, you think Gingrich is electable. Maybe you are right. But he has to flip around 100 electoral votes from the last election in order to barely win. I don’t see him as a candidate with a broad enough appeal to do that easily.
Rome Again
When do we get the edit button back? PLEEEEZE?
FlipYrWhig
@jl: White bigots and weak minded oldsters aren’t swing demographics. That’s the Republican base. Newt seems to make them angry-giddy better than Mitt can. But that doesn’t tell us anything about how the act plays in Peoria.
AA+ Bonds
(I seriously believe that they ended up with Denny Hastert running the show back then because they knew he was too busted in the face to have affairs)
Villago Delenda Est
@AA+ Bonds:
What’s changed since 1994?
1998 happened.
In which Noot’s glorious leadership resulted in the GOP barely maintaining control of the House, when the anticipation was that they’d pick up seats, not lose them.
The result was that within THREE DAYS of the election, Noot was forced out of the speakership by his own party. The morons of the MSM did not see this coming, but I did.
Noot is poison. He is his own worst enemy. His style alienates those who should be his closest allies. He will dance on his own dick sometime in the next few months. The 27% may love all his dog whistles, but the GOP establishment as unenthusiastic as they are about Romney, who is a shitty candidate, have at least enough medium term survival sense to know that Noot heralds their own doom.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Has the Veritas troll been here lately to tell us about the unstoppable Romney juggernaut?
pseudonymous in nc
@AA+ Bonds: Thank you for filling out your previously elliptical comments.
@WereBear (itouch): McCain 2000 vs McCain 2008? McCain actually got 100,000 more votes in ’00, because it was just him, Bush and Alan frickin’ Keyes. In ’08, SC was a genuine 4-way race, with Huckabee winning upstate and rural counties, and Fred Thompson taking 20% in the far upstate. So it’s not as if people who voted against McCain in 2000 necessarily voted for him eight years later.
DanielX
So SC Republican primary voters picked Newt, and some people are surprised? (Especially Mittens, who figured to be doing a victory lap right about now to be followed by a bracing noncaffeinated root beer.) As numerous commentators here and elsewhere have pointed out, South Carolina is about the most conservative – let’s just go ahead and say reactionary – state in the US of A.
The Tea Party there IS the Republican Party, and they detest Mitt Romney with the white hot heat of a thousand suns…to use a phrase. Mormon or not, he’s regarded as being from Massachusetts, a (Yankee) place that South Carolinians, or a lot of them, regard with special loathing. (Anybody remember that movie Glory? You know, black 54th Massachusetts, mostly slaughtered attacking Ft. Wagner at Charleston? Col. Robert Gould Shaw, bluest of Boston bluebloods? Anybody?) Plus he’s a Wall Street type, and they’re not overly fond of them, either.
Also, too – Romney has (had) yet more strikes against him in South Carolina and elsewhere. He’s a Mormon, and for Baptists, of which I hear there’s a few in SC, that means he might as well be a Druid. I mean, shit, they regard Catholicism as a pagan sect. He doesn’t have any mojo, charisma, baraka – which is why this man, who’s been campaigning practically full time since 2006, did worse in Iowa than he did in the previous Iowa primary. Doing worse, in fact, than Rick Santorum. He’s a realist; like him or not (I don’t) you don’t get to be a very successful venture capitalist without a reasonably firm grasp on reality. The 27% don’t need no steenkin’ reality, they want blood and guts and gore and veins in their teeth – which Newton Leroy Gingrich understands very well indeed. And lastly, Mittens is, I think, more civilized than Newt. Given the current Republican base and their mindset after all these years of being fed a steady diet of horseshit by the likes of Limbaugh and Beck, not to mention Newt himself, being civilized isn’t an asset but a handicap.
Newt is following Newt’s Rules, of which there is ONE – Do Whatever It Takes To Win. If that means throwing other Republicans into a pit of rabid wolverines, he’s not going to lose any sleep – what does he have to lose? It’s not like those in the Republican establishment are going to love him any less than they do now, and he regards them as idiot losers anyway for putting up such a slate of other idiots. If he does lose in the general election, he’ll make millions from doing speaking tours and the like and have a lot fewer headaches. And – he figures he just might win. The economy goes south again, there’s a successful major terrorist attack, whatever…it could happen.
The Republican base, well, they don’t want reality, they don’t want civility, they don’t want compromise – they want red meat, which Newt shovels out by the shit ton. Yeah, they want the Kenyanislamofascistsoshulist out, but what they want to hear from a candidate is that they’re a hundred percent right in what they think and say. If saying it means their man Newt doesn’t get elected because he sounds demented to the rest of the electorate, it just means that the vast liberal/media/realist conspiracy has struck once again, dammit. Mittens tries to throw red meat, but it doesn’t come naturally to him and it shows.
FlipYrWhig
@FlipYrWhig: In other words, no white bigot is going to defect from Obama ’08 to Gingrich ’12. Maybe Gingrich can get some of the crazies who sat on the couch rather than voting for McCain, but there can’t have been many of them, because that was Palin’s crowd. I don’t see how he does any better.
pseudonymous in nc
I think, though, that it’s expending a lot of gas to contemplate gNoot making it to the general.
The GOP higher-ups have already done that, and I think Josh Marshall is right to say that it’s Na Ga Happen. The detonator in the Callistabot 3000 will be activated if necessary.
Cacti
@dogwood:
Gnewt would be starting the race with 60% unfavorable vs. 26% favorable ratings nationally (there’s that 27-ish number again).
He has over 50% unfavorable ratings in states like Arizona and Texas, for god’s sake.
Gnewt is the 2012 Goldwater. Loved by the true believers, with a campaign model still stuck in 1993.
FlipYrWhig
@DanielX: The surprising thing was that the polls had swung in Romney’s favor there in the first place.
BTW, Gingrich is Catholic now.
pseudonymous in nc
Just to note: Fox News Sunday has Romney and Boehner booked in, while the networks run with Gingrich. That, I think, is showing the hand of the establishment, even as Faux cultivates the kind of base who want Gingrich up there putting those ni*CLANG* in their place.
Rome Again
@FlipYrWhig:
Only by putting Palin on the ticket (she has endorsed him). Is that even possible after the way she imploded last time?
dead existentialist
@efgoldman: It’s bullshit posting like that that encourages PIPA and SOPA. Just provide a fucking link.
David Koch
Saul Alinsky is
NavajoSouthern-Strategy code-talk for Jew.SS Code-talkers always pick an ethinic Jewish name and harp on it.
In the 90s, when Pat Buchanan ran for president, he loved to harp on the name of Clinton trade rep, Charlene Barshefsky.
In 1976, when Reagan primaried Ford, he would go on and on about Henry Kissinger.
Omnes Omnibus
@ AA+ Bonds in general: Dude, Republican assholes in a particularly assholish state (No offense intended to to good and decent S.C.ers, but come on… You gotta know.) pick a race baiting dipshit from Georgia (a neighboring state) and you start to panic? Calm down.
Rome Again
@pseudonymous in nc:
Freepers deride Fox News almost as much as they do other media now. They’ve already noticed that Mitt has Fox wrapped up.
Rome Again
@David Koch:
And “can’t pray at a school event” is a code word for theocracy.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: This thread has gone bizarre. You would think we lost a special election or something.
DanielX
@FlipYrWhig:
True, he is Catholic. But Baptists can at least be semi-genteel in their prejudice toward those weirdos in that sect who follow that man with the tall hat who resides in Rome. Mormons, on the other hand, they don’t care for atall…that being one reason Brigham and his followers ended up by the Great Salt Lake – they’d already gotten run out of everyplace else. Nobody else but Indians wanted the place, so there was nobody to run them out.
Regarding the polls…Romney didn’t have three weeks to deploy SuperPAC demolition money the way he did in Iowa and after Iowa he had Mittenmentum. Once he got to South Carolina and people got to know more about him, the less they liked him, amazingly enough. Newt may be a Catholic, a known adulterer and a world class asshole, but he’s a southerner and South Carolinians are willing to put up with some ‘eccentricities’ from politicians who cater to their prejudices. (See Ravenel, Thomas.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Seriously, crazy people pick a particular crazy person over a different crazy person and it is supposed to be a sign of something? (Christ, I need to be careful with my typing given the lack of edit function.)
Catsy
@RSA:
This. With apologies for the comment-whoring, I think it’s appropriate to link to this one that I wrote in a dying thread earlier today.
They’ve drunk their own Kool-Aid. They actually believe that Obama is a poor speaker without a teleprompter, that he’s bad at debating, and that the President would really try to minimize the number of debates in the GE out of fear of facing someone like Gingrich.
It’s beyond parody. And it will be their death as a party. You can say all sorts of lunatic crap in public, but if you convince yourself that black is white and up is down, sooner or later it’s going to destroy you. You can’t win a war if your strategies and plans are based on counterfactuals and smug underestimation of your enemy’s abilities.
Yutsano
@Catsy:
“When you enemy is committing an error, let him.”
/Sun Tzu.
Omnes Omnibus
@Catsy: That is it, isn’t it? You can bullshit people, but, once you start to believe it yourself, your career as a conman has a very limited shelf life.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano:
/Napoleon (who, I believe, never read Sun Tzu)
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: ON the contrary, the best way to convince other people of your lies is to first convince yourself.
kay
Those myths die hard, though.
Republicans said McCain was bad at speeches but good at town halls.
McCain sucked at town halls.
He was bored and impatient and almost condescending.
He was bad at speeches AND town halls.
Obama is actually good at town halls. He’s looser and easier with people in that setting.
Yet, they cling to the teleprompter myth.
Cacti
@MikeJ:
Romney’s greatest weakness is his inability to lie with conviction about hotbutton wingut issues.
DanielX
@Catsy:
I do believe we just got done learning a rather expensive lesson about that in Iraq. But it took the better part of six years for it to finally sink in, even for the 27%. Bush’s poll number didn’t REALLY start heading south until late in 2005, remember. But hey, as you point, they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. That word ‘remember’ isn’t a real big part of their vocabulary either, as they evidently don’t remember anything that happened prior to the inauguration of the Kenyan interloper. George? George who? You’d think the name of the last preznit (two terms no less) would come up a little more often, what with all his domestic and foreign policy triumphs. Talk about down the memory hole.
Mark S.
AA+ Bonds must have had a lot of money riding on Romney.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: Not if you are a grifter. These people are, in the main, grifters at heart. Don’t make post links to The Gambler.
Cacti
@kay:
The myths can even be completely contradictory. For example…
Obama is naive, unqualified, and completely out of his depth…but is the master of the dirty, Chicago political machine.
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: I lurve good ol’ Fyodor. Do yer worst.
DanielX
@Cacti:
On that contradictory thing, example two:
The government can’t do anything right and everything the government does is wrong or turns out badly.
The government is completely knowledgeable and completely competent to remake and bring democracy to the Middle East.
Chris
@DanielX:
Oh, that myth has come and gone. They’ve long since moved on to “the government COULD have completely remade and brought democracy to the Middle East, if those Muslims weren’t so damn MUSLIM, Bush’s only problem was that he was too trusting and good-hearted and nice towards them.”
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: Okay, fine. Here you go.
dogwood
@kay:
It’s not just wingnuts who cling to these myths, many Democrats seem to believe this stuff as well. I’ve read this blog for years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a community of Democrats whose relatives, co-workers, and neighbors are all loony wingnuts. Hell, I live in Idaho, so I think I have a pretty good grasp on what and how Republicans think, but I also know that Idaho is a very small slice of America. There simply aren’t any numbers to back up this idea that half of the country hates the President, or thinks he’s stupid.
Omnes Omnibus
@dogwood: Aw, shit. I have a couple of wingnut cousins. Eighty per cent or more of my family have always been liberals. Hell, we even opposed to the Salem Witch Trials. I live in Madison, WI, not exactly at wingnut mecca. Be careful with your generalizations.
kay
Dogwood, I’m jealous that you live in Idaho.
I’ve never been there, but I think I would like that sort of landscape.
I like cold winters and hot summers, too.
I sometimes think the panic over Obama is just plain old fear of losing.
Republicans have a weak field, and that’s a gift. They still may win, but they are less likely to win than they were 6 months ago, when everyone assumed Romney was a normal human being.
I do think O is good at town halls, though. He comes off as warm and funny.
They should do a lot of them.
Anne Laurie
@Hill Dweller:
Nah, it’s just that Newt is unpredictable. Even he, much less Callista, still less-than-that his paid/paying advisors, has no idea where his Great Brain’s Grandiose Thoughts, or other body parts, are going to lead Newt tomorrow. The Money Party (who own the Permanent Government) hate unpredictable. They can work with opposition — they’ve done pretty well for themselves under the cuurent administration, for instance — but unpredictable is their worst nightmare. Romney is both their guy and predictable in the extreme, but nuts come to cutting, I think their Bohemian Grove fellows would persuade the Koch brothers that a second-term President Obama would be less dangerous to the continued prosperity of the One Percenters than Newt Gingrich on a mission from god.
bemused senior
@Catsy: Exactly. For those who think that there’s some truth to the crazies’ belief Newt will somehow best Obama in debates, remember when Obama visited the Republican retreat and took questions.
dogwood
@kay:
I live in northern Idaho, and grew up even farther north, fairly close to Sandpoint where Sarah Palin was born. That part of Idaho, the panhandle, is much more like Montana than what most people associate with Idaho.
I totally agree with you about the townhalls. I recently retired, but I spent 30+ years teaching AP American government, so I was, and still am, a CPAN viewer. During the 2008 election, I followed the primaries almost exclusively on CSPAN’s Road to the White House. Without benefit of talking heads, I simply watched a lot of campaign events. At the time I thought Obama was the best candidate on either side based on how he campaigned and interacted with voters.
Anne Laurie
@Gretchen: Iris DeMent. (Sorry, on my machine her credit appears at the top of the YT clip.)
Mike
@kay: F the townhalls. You don’t make news with townhalls. Go back to the big arena events. Obama did his best there and his popularity was highest when he wasn’t afraid of the “celebrity” moniker. Big crowds influence people. The crowds themselves tell their family and friends and so on, but also the news of hundreds of thousands of people at an event make people think that there must be something strongly positive if so many people are drawn to this.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@bemused senior: Exactly. I don’t get it. They have actual, verifiable proof that he’ll hand them their asses live and 1-to-1 and they’re still fixated on the teleprompter BS.
Kathleen
@WereBear (itouch): Excellent point. I hope you feel better (-:
matt
after I edit this comment, it will be more insightful.
Rome Again
@RSA:
No they’re not. Gingrich is supposedly asking for seven 3 hour debates and they think he’s going to spend 21 hours slapping down Obama during those events.
Rome Again
Here’s the link to the Gingrich Challenge (NewsMax): http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/gingrich-obama-debates/2012/01/21/id/425022