The Voice of San Diego is reporting that at least one of Newt’s former Congressional colleagues has his back:
Jailed ex-Congressman Duke Cunningham wants Newt Gingrich to know he’s got the Republican presidential candidate’s back. [snip]
Cunningham tells Gingrich in an electronic message he says he sent to the candidate last month that his fellow prisoners, and their families, support Gingrich:
Newt, a voice out of the past. Down but not out and still fighting. First I do not want anything from you but have been watching the debates. I have 80% of inmates that would vote for you. They might not be able to but their extended families will. [snip]
First when you were Speaker of the House having a Democratic president, you passed every issue working with the house and senate Dems. It was not easy and Mit (sic) just does not have this experience. It also shows that every bone in your body is for helping this nation become great again through conservative government. [ship]
The ideas are sound and pray they can help. What ever (sic) happens we have good candidates that will take out a president that believes that socialist policy is good for America. [snip]
You gave this nation its surplus Newt. You did it.
Somehow it is not a surprise that a Convicted Congressman who used his own House letterhead to draft a bribe by bribe price list, would endorse Newt.
I wonder if The Professor will brag tonight about his former colleagues sending him encouragement and offers of support…
Cheers
JPL
OT..Although Newt blogs are important, I think it’s time that a front pager take on Chris Christie’s comments on the Civil Rights. At a time when blacks were being prevented from voting, he thinks they would have flocked to the polls to vote. I guess I miss ABL..
smintheus
@JPL: Link?
pragmatism
how low of a low information voter is one that let’s his incarcerated family member determine their vote?
american exceptionalism?
General Stuck
I think Gingrich plans one thing at this stage. Inciting a full frontal right wing riot. With him as the antidote to the mountains of resentment that is at volcanic stage, or nearing it. He is the fly in the plutocrat ointment, and mean and tough as they come. And mainlined straight into the wingnut brain stem like no one else running. He may well fizzle out in the end, but he ain’t done just yet. And either way, this is good news for Obama and democrats.
Dennis G.
@JPL: On my list for later tonight…
BGinCHI
In other news, Charles Manson endorsed Ron Paul. Here is his statement:
So, like, the government is oppressing me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: that was a jaw-dropper. I’m kind of stunned. I thought Christie was major, shrunken-souled asshole, but I didn’t think he was this bad.
I wonder if David Gregory is repeating this to friends and colleagues as if it’s a keen historical insight.
WereBear
Per thegrio.com
Oh, yes, Governor Christie. All those white people in Selma and Montgomery and Memphis, the ones who didn’t let African Americans vote, they would have agreed at the polling places, and all that firehosing and dog siccing was just in good fun, or something.
BGinCHI
@WereBear: Next on Chris Christie:
If there had been a national election, there never would have been a Civil War.
r€nato
Duke Cunningham… the guy who discovered the issue of prisoner’s rights after being tossed in the clink for his brazen bribery.
r€nato
@WereBear: and the magic hand of the free market would have rid our nation of segregation and discrimination.
General Stuck
I know about all the fears liberals have about a Gingrich presidency, or that possibility achieved by serendipitous events in a GE. But it is well worth it IMO. We would have the tea party mentality incarnate with a Gingrich nomination. And our side with a quasi pragmatic liberal that happens to be black, and the very best politician within the dem party.
It could represent a thunderdome of bare boned ideological contestants, without a lot of bullshit posturing toward the center. I sorta like those setups when they arrive. Clears the air, or blows it up.
JPL
@Dennis G.: Thanks. I didn’t mean to hog the site but either Christie is dumb or he is whistling dixie.
Benjamin Franklin
Jeebus.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
r€nato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not prepared to sling the R word at Christie, that gets used entirely too much.
I think it speaks a lot more to his utter ignorance about the civil rights movement and the conditions that led to it. Did they not teach that stuff in his high school?
Benjamin Franklin
@General Stuck:
Yin-yang
Mike in NC
The real crime is that Duke Cunningham and Newt weren’t destined to share a cell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@General Stuck: I don’t fear a Gingrich presidency so much as I do his winning the nomination– which I think is at best a 25% chance– as I do some nitwit like Bayh or Bloomberg fucking everything up with an indie run
General Stuck
@Benjamin Franklin:
teehee. something like that
Dennis G.
@r€nato: The A word will work just fine for him: he is an asshole.
r€nato
@General Stuck: I’m all ready for a smackdown between Obama and the mad-as-hell teabaggers in the general election. The only possible down side I could see, is that it might hasten the day when the GOP wakes up and realizes how it’s marginalized itself.
j
What does this mean?
“SHIP”?
Is that a secret code from the K Street cabal telling Newt to “ship” something, or is Duke telling Newt that something has already been “shipped”?
I’ll bet that Santorum (MR> K STREET) knows what’s up, and that’s why he’s been angling for the Veep position in a Newt presidency.
pragmatism
@Mike in NC: no cell can hold gnoot. calista would use her hair helmet as a battering ram.
JGabriel
Ex-Rep. and Current Prisoner Duke Cunningham:
80% Republican inmates (minimum, could be much higher if we assume there are adamant Romney, Santorum, and Paul supporters who could not be swayed by the Dukester’s entreaties)?
I always assumed that Republicans made up the majority of white collar prisoners, but even I’m surprised by a >80% incarceration representation.
.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@r€nato: I didn’t mean to necessarily imply racism, but for an American politician, really any American over the age of twenty, to be so fantastically clueless about American history is shocking. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond are not vague figures of the misty past.
Suffern ACE
Egads. If only the blacks would have made better appeals to white people, those rights would have been allowed. A constitutional amendment granting those rights would passed and none of that marching would have been necessary.
JGabriel
r€nato:
Republican? Or you mean that other r-word that’s synonymous with it, at least from a policy perspective.
.
j
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Mayor of Newark took offense to Governor Chubby
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/01/26/412684/cory-booker-responds-to-christie-i-wouldnt-be-where-i-am-if-civil-rights-were-put-to-a-popular-vote/?mobile=nc
Mike E
@Mike in NC: Ya never know from where the shiv will come
scav
Every year we could eagerly turn to the special edition of People’s Magazine to see what’s been voted as “The 10 Most Popular Bill of Rights”!
r€nato
I just don’t believe that slinging the word ‘racist’ around when ‘ignorant fucking asshole’ or ‘that was an ignorant fucking thing to say’ works just fine.
Wingnuts sort of have a point that liberals are very free about using the R word, even if on more than a few occasions it’s richly deserved.
r€nato
…imagine if you suggested to Republicans that we should hold a referendum on the 2nd Amendment…
dedc79
Reminds me of a great scene in the film Rushmore: “With friends like you, who needs friends?”
Raven
@JGabriel: He’s in no real joint:
WereBear
That’s my take. Stark contrast! I want.
evinfuilt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As this is Balloon Juice, I feel I can get away with this.
Chris Christie, what a fucking asshole. If he’s not careful there will be a new definition for his name, and as a Christina, I don’t mind it…
JGabriel
General Stuck:
A Romney candidacy would make the election a referendum on the class war the GOP has waged on behalf of the 1% for the past 30 years.
A Gingrich candidacy would be a referendum on Conservative partisanship, extremism, and lunacy.
I’d rather Democrats win the Romney referendum, because it marks a clear direction and mandate for the next 4 years — to rein in the excesses of the GOP’s onslaught on the 99%. A Gingrich referendum would just be a rejection — or worse, a confirmation — of the crazy.
Also, I feel marginally more confident of winning the Romney referendum. I am not at all confident that a majority of Americans would reject the crazy — after all, 40% of Americans self-identify as Conservative. Only 1% are in the 1%.
.
Martin
Shorter
ChristieGOP: And while we’re on the topic, if they wanted freedom so badly, why didn’t those slaves vote for it? It looks like they were too lazy to even bother voting!Martin
@JGabriel: This is a really important point, and should be reiterated.
The general election is a referendum. After a Obama/Romney race, the electorate would be saying the GOP policies are wrong. After an Obama/Gingrich race, the electorate would be saying the GOP voters are idiots and assholes.
The flip side is that in practical terms, Obama could beat Romney and still face a GOP or split Congress. Gingrich I suspect would be so caustic to down ticket races that it’d materially help Dems, particularly in the House where its needed. Even though we’d not prove the policy outcome with Gingrich, we might wind up with a more operable Congress as a result, and I think the current GOP House is so entrenched that they don’t care if they’re on the losing end of the policy. I think we have to win the seats, even if we have to skip over the policy battle.
Omnes Omnibus
@evinfuilt: Funny, you seemed like a Mary to me.
dedc79
@Martin: But also, keep in the mind that the GOP only sees voter mandates when the votes are for the GOP
rikyrah
I’m getting tired of the GOP trying to whitewash Jim Crow.
My father would have been FORTY-TWO YEARS OLD if he had stayed in the state of his birth, before he would have been able to vote.
and this is AFTER he put on the uniform and put his life at risk for FIVE YEARS for a country that considered him a second-class citizen in their laws.
That fat fuck Krispy Kreme can kiss my Black ass with his revisionism.
JGabriel
Dennis G.:
Christie, and his admirers, proudly accept the honorific of asshole.
If we’re relinquishing “racist” as too over-specific for Christie’s particular strain of aggressive ignorant hostility, then perhaps fucktard would be more apropos.
.
Benjamin Franklin
@rikyrah:
God bless your Dad.
Benjamin Franklin
@JGabriel:
In Church Lady’s absence I anoint your internet award.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: He has a point, if you ignore history and reality.
catpal
just read this about the guy who turned Newt in and got him out of Congress.
great reading in the the Guardian
Really interesting is how many Repugs voted to shame Newt back then:
“The ensuing Congressional vote supporting the committee’s decision was 395 to 28, with 196 Republicans voting to censure him.”
JGabriel
@Martin:
I’m not convinced that Romney would be any less caustic to downticket races, especially if his nomination as the Republican standard bearer is perceived as representing and symbolizing the GOP’s defense of the wealthy evading their fair share of the nation’s economic burdens and responsibilities.
.
Suffern ACE
The problem, I suppose, is that they wanted rights right away without going through the normal process of popular amendment. I mean, the NAACP is founded in 1909 and already three generations later they were upset by the slow pace of progress.
Calouste
Gals, guys, let’s just settle this. Christie is a racist asshole, mkey?
Suffern ACE
@JGabriel: If you make this about taxes, whether you call it “fair share” or not, you are going to lose. The Republicans have gotten by on pledging no taxes and no cuts to spending (that affects you) and a balanced budget for years. This election is about Medicare and Social Security and whether or not we will continue those. But if you want to make it about taxes, good luck.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: I know it’s snark, but the necessary Amendments had already been passed – 13, 14, 15 – and during the “radical” part of Reconstruction, things were starting to progress. Of course, it didn’t last and virtually every gain from the Radical Reconstruction period was lost.
g
Hey! Newt cornered the crook vote!
Omnes Omnibus
@g: Well, yeah.
Quicksand
He has the convict vote locked up!
Smiling Mortician
@catpal: I had no idea the original Newt shitstorm broke because “Cooter” dropped a dime. Not quite the Dukes of Hazzard connection I would have envisioned, but still kind of awesome.
DanielX
Ooooh, top shelf endorsement. Maybe next he can get one from Gotti Junior?