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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

This is a recipe for disaster

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 21st, 2012 at 09:59 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Peter Hamby from CNN notes what is going to be a recipe for disaster for Mitt Romney as he tries to relate to the Republican base.

In South Carolina exit polls, Romney wins only the “moderate or liberal”, those with incomes in excess of $200,000.00, those with postgraduate education, those who oppose the tea party movement, and those who think religion does not matter at all.

A number of those have been consistent through Iowa and New Hampshire too.

Mitt Romney’s exit polling reflects he can get the votes of Washington, D.C. Republicans and those who think we should leave the fate of the country in their hands. But he cannot get the votes of those who think we need to reform and reduce the power of Washington, which I venture to say is a sizable portion of the base.

The other day, Dan McLaughlin explained who the GOP establishment is. That characterizes Mitt Romney’s base even in the exit polls. Unfortunately for him, the base of the party is at war with that precise group.

The buzz in Washington now is that the Republican Establishment fears Gingrich will cause them to lose the House and not get the Senate. Put another way, the current Republican leadership fears that the man who helped the GOP take back the House for the first time in 40 years and his allies in the tea party who helped take back the House in 2010 will cause the GOP to now lose.

They’ll lose alright — they’ll lose power to others. That’s their real fear.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    those establishment fears re the House and Senate.

  • http://www.RightonMainSt.com Mike Merrill

    The same GOP party leaders who dismissed the Tea Party are now bombarding disaffected conservatives with pleas for contributions. More and more people I know identify themselves as conservatives, not as Republicans. I support the Tea Party, but I’m fed up with the Republican Party leadership.

    Newt took on the party leaders when he became GOP Whip, and they tried get him to back down from the Contract With America. He successfully fought the ‘powers that be’ in the party once, and I’m confident he can do it again.

  • rickperryreport

    Isn’t Newt’s speech, and CNN’s decision to televise the entire thing, without fading to a commercial. The speech was wonderful, and classy. He complimented all of his opponents and made the strongest, most detailed case for the defeat of Obama ever muttered in this campaign.

    I think he can pull this thing off.

    (CNN coverage has been really good, too. I especially like the inside studio cuts to the streets. One of the studio guys, I think it was Gergen, said that Newt is the streetfighter who brings a switchblade to a street fight. Anyone have a more accurate quote?)

    This old Rick Perry guy is getting excited again.

    joe

  • http://www.planettron.com NickDeringer

    How will losing the house teach them a lesson? It’s suicide nominating Newt.

  • clintonformccain

    would so dis-energize the base that it would have dire consequences for House and Senate races.

    Acutally, at this point, the nomination battle is in such shambles, that this outcome is pretty much assured. It’s a shame. I guess the fact is that the Republican Party simply didn’t have a good candidate this time around.

  • ethos

    Though that can be the meme that helps unite the Tea Party and drown out Newt’s negatives, what is really taking place is a struggle to win the electability argument. The party will coalesce around the candidate that appears to be the most electabile, and Gingrich won that struggle heading into South Carolina.

    The meme in question is simply a quant way of countering Mitt’s many endorsements from current Republican leadership, and does nothing to depict the reality of current Republican politics.

  • maddawg

    Nice to hear Newt thank Rick Perry and again define how they would continue to work together, while ignoring Mittens and bringing out the best damn reasons for removing NoBama since this whole thing started.

    And like joe – “This old Rick Perry guy is getting excited again.”

  • aesthete

    How do we lose the House? There’s a chance we don’t win the Senate… but losing the House? Who’s credibly projecting that this will happen?

  • nvrepub

    I fear a Gingrich nomination = 4 more years of Obama.

  • stumpy

    The point is the “leadership” will lose by casting their lots with Romney and hopefully get replaced by real conservatives, not quasi-conservatives concerned mostly with maintaining their own power, influence and paychecks.

    Newt has his warts, but once Perry became non-viable, Newt was the only option close to a three-legged conservative. He has the verbal skills and can relate to people in order to win the primary and defeat Obama. Most of the base can get excited about Newt, not so with Romney.

  • http://www.planettron.com NickDeringer

    Do you know what happened in 1998 with Newt and his ethics scandal?

  • Common_Cents

    The base will turn out for Gingrich, but not for Romney.

    We’ll pick up seats.

    the DC elite establishment is just scared of too much change.

  • joecollins

    worry about what mainstream Republicans think. Oh yeah, they will come for Newt. Britt Hume already has his sour face and predicts doom. We will see more of that in the coming week . . .and it will get LOUD.

    But tonight, I am savoring a victory. David slayed Goliath. It is a just victory and I celebrate.

  • http://www.planettron.com NickDeringer

    Just one poll? Any poll?

  • Common_Cents

    go ahead and worry about head to head polls right now.

  • bluerose75

    I heard the same thing you did from Brit Hume. Did you also hear Brit after the debate on Thursday? He was not complimentary to Newt then either. He thought Rick won the debate and that Newt looked angry and mad and how would that play to the female in SC? Guess what Newt won every category including the female married voter. Brit, like so many pundits, miss the mark on this issue. He said Mitt favorability was 45 to 38 as well and how did that help Mitt?

    Newt’s negatives are high why? Well lets see Romney has spent millions to blast him and cut him down! Now that has hurt his appearance now but remember Newt can now build on that and go up. His speech tonight demonstrated that. The thing for Newt is alot of his negatives are being aired now which gives him the time to build and swing for the upside. In other words, he is vetted…..Newt tonight showed he can also look and speak very sincerely and that will help big time. But remember in the end it is the Economy that wins the elections!

  • Common_Cents

    Romney is imploding and needs to improve.

    He will unleash a huge negative campaign against Gingrich in FL. He better watch out for backlash now.

  • http://www.planettron.com NickDeringer

    What was I thinking? We all know Newt has some magic fairy dust and he will thorw it in One-bama’s eyes and puff, Newt will win!!

    Polls? Who needs polls?

  • JSobieski

    They may be instinctively negative to Newt, but Newt can tap to some degree into the positive feelings of the Clinton era.

    I think there are a lot of Reagan democrats who Newt can get. I don’t think the 58% is baked into the cake.

    There is a lot to fear in this election. We are looking for the best option from a universe of options in which no option looked good at first blush.

    Newt will have to show some real personal growth for him to win the nomination. If he can show that maturity—show that he has grown, I think he can win the nomination and the general.

    If not, Romney (whose ability to even make a basic defense of his own record at Bain) will be the default candidate.

    I hope that both candidates force improvement in the other. In a way, each is the perfect foil for the other.

  • mikelindell2

    They were the first ones to stop covering the election results tonight. They cut off their coverage by at least an hour earlier than everyone else. They are so pro-Romney, and by extension pro-Santorum, I feel they are threatening to alienate a huge block of their viewership. It felt like the people covering the results tonight were at a funeral. Anyone else who feels so disgusted by them should email and/or tweet the shows and people that display this open bias and tell them to STOP THE ANTI-NEWT PROPAGANDA. He is the strongest candidate we have and would trounce Obama in the campaign. Once elected, you know he would fight for and accomplish huge things in Washington. Let’s make it happen

  • joecollins

    Bloomberg is carrying the story. Looks like Jeb got cold feet and won’t endorse Mitt just yet.

  • mikelindell2

    Romney would make us lose the House more than Newt. Romney represents the stereotype of Republicans that Democrats want to create/have created. Even people that won’t like Newt see he doesn’t fit that stereotype.

  • snowshooze

    Newt has an uphill battle with the establishment.
    You are exactly right. We are sick of them, and now we have Newt out there, they are going to pull out all the stops. They have to.
    Newt is going to need support from everyone now.
    We cannot donate a lot, but there are a lot of us that can donate a little.
    The Romney camp and the establishment has just been slapped in the face. They aren’t going to take this laying down.
    Money will flow like water on their side.
    Fortunately, Romney is so deeply flawed and divorced from the middle class that we can scarcely stand to listen to him.
    It’s been a wild ride so far… but there is a long road ahead.

  • bluerose75

    Another thing did you hear Hume declare how all the GOP in Washington will now do everything to stop Newt. Why? because they fear Newt’s negatives could hurt them!! Is it me or did Hume fall off the reality chair?? You know what Brit…I could give one darn about the GOP Establishment having their underwear in a knot! You live in DC, what a surprise, and you hang with the same inside the beltway robotrons that no matter what an election hits you with a 2X4 you will still drink the beltway cool-aid. By the way Brit is that sold in Supermarkets in DC under the pull my string and I will YAT YAT the same boring line? Cherry flavor? How about Crow flavor?

    The elites in DC do not win elections buddy! They work for the people a concept you and ignorants that work in DC always forget. And I will wait intently to see which DC insiders of the GOP work against Newt. We shall see how well they do if they lose conservative support Brit! They are easily primaried and will get shown the door by the base! So save your threat for the tea parties and press corps and leave the elections to the real people.

  • dcarter888

    This is insane.
    Newt has never managed a company, never done anything other than his foundation and sell books and be a professor but he’s the right guy to send to Wash to cut and make govt smaller when he’s a big govt republican? Reagan would denounce Newt if he were alive today. He’s a progressive. I agree with Larry Kudlow you can’t forgive Newt for his class warfare anti capitalism anti Bain stances.

    I know Eric hates Romney I think as much as Newt’s 2nd wife hates him. When Newt wins and Obama kicks his butt and we lose house and senate which is exactly opposite of what we should be doing. Eric I’ll remind you and blame you! There has never been a poll that says Newt can win in general. We need to take the white house and have the coat tails to take over the senate.

  • mikelindell2

    Okay. Early December Rasmussen poll showed him as the only candidate beating Obama, he was beating him 42-40. A USA Today/Gallup poll out a few weeks ago showed him beating Obama in the 12 key swing states for this election. Near the end of November there was a McClatchy Marist poll showing him doing the best matched up against Obama. Sorry to rain on your parade. Oh, and Newt has huge potential to attract voters to him, whereas Romney will stay static like in the primaries.

  • carolina

    Romney is depressing.
    I just don’t like Santorum and I wish he would go away.
    Thank you Newt for taking up the 10th amendment battle!
    AND Newt has the best economic growth plan!

  • redcal

    This is not like Romney where he’d never been on the national stage before 2008 and we’re discovering new things every week (in addition to Romney, the gaffe-o-matic, creating new controversies just as frequently). The ethics scandal was national news 14 years ago. The voter base (in the general election, but especially in GOP primaries) is predominantly made up of people over 40 who were full-grown adults in the late 90′s and remember the good and bad. Evidently, they’ve decided that the ethics scandal isn’t a big deal, and Romney is just going to spin his wheels trying to get traction with it (as he tried to do with the ’15 year anniversary’). His political instincts are just terrible.

  • chbroussard

    Brit Hume on Fox made the statement about the fear of bringing the ticket down with Newt. I used to feel like Fox was the only place I could go to find out what was really going on in politics. That, it appears, is no longer the case. Fair and Balanced……BS.

  • rickperryreport

    Newt’s the streetfighter. Didn’t have one of them last election. Or the one before that. Or the one before that.

    I’m not as emotionally attached to Newt as I was Perry, but I do know that Romney bores me to death. Just like going to the ballet on a Sunday afternoon.

    Newt will bring the fight to the streets. Romney will tiptoe around the edges, like a the ballet dancer he is.

    I don’t give a poop about a poll this far out. My wing commander told me I would probably get shot down over Iraq in 1991. The polls (brown shoe intel clerks) were predicting a bad night when we faced the formidable Iraqi air defenses nicknamed “Kara.” We went in there like streetfighters and changed history.

    Go Newt.

  • azaeroprof

    One thing I’ve learned from observing 40+ years of politics is that trying to predict ANYTHING months in advance is foolish. Campaigns tend to take on a life of their own, and can take twists and turns much different than the conventional wisdom (take 2008 for example).

    Anything can happen from this point. Newt could easily win or lose the nomination, and win or lose the general. It’s impossible to say with more than about 5% certainty right now. One thing I do know is that the probability we will have a Massachusetts liberal masquerading as a moderate shoved down our throats by the establishment just dropped considerably tonight. For this reason, I will go to sleep with a smile on my face tonight. :)

  • nvrepub

    nt

  • redcal

    You want just one poll with Gingrich beating Obama? I’ll give you two, and call your candi-bot bluff:

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/election_2012_archive/november_2011/national_poll_gingrich_45_obama_43

    http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_715.pdf

    Do your homework next time, maybe?

  • APA Guy

    I mean honestly, the nomination is HIS! How dare Newt step on his sandcastle.

    Newt spoke like a president tonight. Romney’s star is dimming with each passing moment as Gingrich shows him how a real man campaigns and debates.

  • Tbone

    The heck with their crap.

  • clintonformccain

    ..that Newt Gingrich has a prayer of grabbing votes from disaffected Dems and independents. That’s what would be so devastating about his nomination. The Republicans are positioned to get votes from centrist types who are desperate to vote against Obama, if they believe that the alternative is sane, competent, and reliable.

  • redcal

    And likely won’t endorse until the summer convention.

  • rickperryreport

    Can you imagine that the congressional races with a Romney league? Man! We’d have to be defending vulture capitalism, I mean Bain Capital… errr Wall Street’s version of Free Market Capitalism in every congressional district!

    What a freakin’ nightmare!

  • romeg

    Still a bit of a long shot but at least he now has a shot, we can finish what we started in 2010: regaining control of the Senate and extending and solidifying the conservative Tea Party gains in both the Senate and the House.

    I’m suddenly filled with hope for the future for my children and their children that we will not become another European styled socialist confederation.

  • clintonformccain

    ..in a Presidential election.

    And, in what alternate universe could a guy who has been a Washington inside for over 30 years be ‘too much change”. He’s an old warhorse Washington hack. Kind of like John McCain, but with a lot more baggage.

  • maddawg

    I switched to CNN to see how the other half treated him. It was very interesting to watch John King try to say something nice as the Newt numbers came in :-)

  • stumpy

    however, I also think this is mostly a reflection of the “old” Newt. There is a possibility that old Newt resurfaces. As the public gets more used to Newt, the old baggage will fade. This will improve his numbers while Obama’s likely will sink once the republicans ramp up to full speed on Obama.

    He can rally the base, not drag them along like Romney. He can draw clear contrasts with Obama and attack Obamacare where Romney cannot. He can attack Obama with partisanship by displaying what he did with the republican half-congress compared to what he did with Clinton. Like it or not, Clinton is extremely popular with the “Regan Democrat” types. These voters never really warmed to Obama (they were Hillary supporters to the bitter end). They are why his #’s are so bad in the Midwest. Gingrich can attract these swing voters like Romney can’t. You have to attack your opponents weakness. Gingrich can do that.

  • asap100

    We need 3 new parties ,
    One for the Left- which includes Micheal Moore types
    A moderate/ status quo party , this includes Obama and Romney , since they agree on most issues .
    And a party for conservatives like you guys, since your obviously not happy with the prospect of President Romney .

  • bluerose75

    You know how about you show us anywhere in Mitt’s record where he was conservative? Come on!! Show us??? You and Kudlow talk about Bain…fine great…I love he made money. Now that is done you show me where when he ran Mass as a Governor he showed one ounce of conservatism? Where? He saved the Olympics again in private life…fine…back to his record as Governor….Romneycare? Increased Taxes? Left Leaning Judges and Abortion Funding?

    Do you live under a rock? If you saw that record would that more resemble a liberal or conservative? Heck he and Obama should have a steak dinner at Ruth Chris’s to celebrate Obamacare, which was blueprinted off Romneycare!! Of course facts bother people like you!

    Newt is not perfect and I will gladly admit he has issues that I do not like but Newt is not a progressive in taxes or income….or capital gains or business development. He took the wrong approach with Bain and I did not like that. But calling him class warfare for Bain is a joke. Yes when I see Newt’s record I see higher taxes, pro-abortion, left leaning judges, centralized medicine and more….OOPS that is Romney!

    In fact, Newt was one of the majore forces behind defeating Hillarycare…remember that monster Kudlow?

  • JSobieski

    If Newt can campaign like he did today—Newt will get independent voters.

    Very few propositions in the real world are as black and white as you describe. Life is fluid, and politics is particularly dynamic.

    You are dreaming if you think you can dispositively predict the future.

  • http://www.sharmenwright.com misspiano

    Hey, this Rick Perry “gal” is getting excited, too! I cannot wait to watch Newt mop the floor with ole BO! It is going to be worth the wait!

  • APA Guy

    This economy is in shambles…and Obama makes matters worse by digging in on the Keystone pipeline. Independents won’t side with a socialist who wants Americans to pay $5-6/gallon for gas and be forced to ride bikes 50 miles to work. Clinton was smart enough to know this. Obama? Not so much…and Independents will make him feel it in November when the Speaker who balanced the budget and oversaw an unprecidented jobs expansion (and .99/gallon gas) in the 90s.

  • APA Guy

    Independents will make him feel it in November when the Speaker who balanced the budget and oversaw an unprecidented jobs expansion (and .99/gallon gas) in the 90s is on the other end of the ballot.

  • stumpy

    I can see right through their crap. Of cource CNN looks like a Democrat campaign headquarters. I bet you could bring out some Cinton signs and see the room light up. Fox News is losing their credibility. CNN seems to be making an effort to be more neutral, at least at this point.

    A separate question, Why does CNN seem to treat EE like a redheaded stepchild. They barely give him any air time. When they do, I can tell he tries to speed up and get as much as possible in in his two minutes that he appears out of breath. EE has some of the best campaign insight, but seems extremely underused by CNN.

  • virginiahiker

    Back in May, most of the people on RedState ranked Newt as a Washington insider who failed because conservatives revolted against him. Today they are hailing him as the second coming. Romney derangement syndrome has taken such a deep hold, I think many on this site would eagerly choose Obama if he were the only remaining alternative.

    Britt Hume’s reminder of Newt’s 58% unfavorable rating may be uncomfortable, it is also factual. Some are favorably comparing Newt to Goldwater. Let’s see what that brought us. Aside from electing Lyndon Johnson to his first full term, the Democrats picked up 37 seats in the House and achieved a 2/3rds majority in the Senate. The subsequent 89th Congress enacted:

    April 11, 1965: Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
    July 27, 1965: Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act,
    July 30, 1965: Social Security Act of 1965, (including Medicaid and Medicare)
    August 10, 1965: Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965,
    August 26, 1965: Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965,
    September 29, 1965: National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act,
    October 3, 1965: Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965,
    October 20, 1965: Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, (including Solid Waste Disposal Act)
    October 22, 1965: Highway Beautification Act,
    November 8, 1965: Higher Education Act,
    November 8, 1965: Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments
    April 13, 1966: Uniform Time Act,
    September 9, 1966: National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
    October 15, 1966: National Historic Preservation Act,
    October 15, 1966: National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act,
    October 15, 1966: Department of Transportation Act,
    November 3, 1966: Comprehensive Health, Planning and Service Act,

    Yes, Goldwater’s nomination signaled the birth of the modern conservative movement; but 50 years later we are still trying to reverse the damage caused by his landslide defeat.

    Yes the Republican establishment in Washington wants to hang on to whatever tenuous hold on power the party has. They know too well the price their children will pay if we have a repeat of 1964.

  • pttx333

    years about the GOP establishment’s goal – themselves. Above anything else, they wish to maintain the status quo, their fiefdoms, their cushy little nests which need constant feathering, their power and their so-called prestige. They care not a fig about the common man and differ very little from the dims.

    If they truly believe they can sway further elections, I think they were sent a very strong message in SC that they are dead wrong. The are in fear for their very lives and rightfully so – they should be. If I have even one word to say to them, that one word would be – GETOUTTAHEAH!

    You mentioned ever so delicately and eloquently in another diary about “giving the finger” to the guilty parties, and I concur. Just extend one finger – the ugly half of the peace sign – to let them know exactly how you feel.

  • bluerose75

    McCain thought just as you do…Oh fight for that 20 percent of independents and you can win!! Funny the DEMS are never told that! The base must be on fire sir to win an election and that is a fact! McCain was nominated as well because he could attract crossovers,,,,yeah right! For every crossover you lost 3 in the base. You must address your base with classic conservative ideals and have the convinction to articulate. Reagan addressed his base with his ideas and through that passion converted indepedents and bluedogs…HE DID NOT PANDER to the middle mush like you want the GOP. That is a recipe for loss!!

    To win you must ignite your base and articulate your ideas effectively. Romney has no chance of that because he is not conservative.

    Newt being a political inside makes me laugh!! The entire GOP Establishment is behind Romney (the whole INSIDER group) and you have the nerve to call Newt the Insider….What a joke….Yes Newt was in politics and yes he knows Washington but the Establishment wants Romney and here you are calling Newt the Insider….LOL!!

  • ethos

    But it clearly marks a change in strategy for Romney, where he will begin campaigning against Newt vs looking over the pack and focusing on Obama. The first three contests, in retrospect, have gone how you’d expect. Romney played it as the front runner for so long because the field was so muddled that you couldn’t say who exactly the challenger was. Now it is clear, and it is Newt. A two man race with Romney vs Newt will be exactly what both candidates need to win in November. Romney’s campaign has the organization and money that mirrors Obama, while Newt has the rhetoric and zeal that mirrors Obama. It is a win win for the Republican party, with a side of risk if the party actually becomes as irrational as many fear and splinters between Tea Party anti-establishment and the rest.

  • Tbone

    Then we would know who to deport to France.

  • Tbone

    Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama. May they all rot in Hell.

  • stumpy

    And if you think Obama isn’t in the liberal camp, you need your head examined. Romney is much more conservative than Obama, but he is still not a conservative. He is a moderate and an opportunist. Gray is much lighter than black, but it still ain’t white.

  • rememberthealamo

    Funny, the Washington establishment didn’t want Perry. They did everything they could to poison the well against him. Now they have Newt instead. Some one needs to tell them be careful what you wish for.

  • APA Guy

    Of course “us guys” aren’t happy with the prospect of President Romney. Conservatives generally disapprove of Eastern U.S liberals dressed in GOP banners who only get their conservative socks out for primaries.

  • red_refugee

    Mitt reminds me of Bob Dole and John McCain. A good-natured moderate that the media can tolerate. I don’t like everything about Newt, but I love that the media is as scared of him as there were of Reagan.

  • pantera

    The ”establishment” would rather control how the GOP loses then lose control of how the GOP wins.

  • rickperryreport

    If you were around in 2010, you probably remember the American Spectator article titled America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution”.

    Much of what Erick is writing about above is well explained in that 2010 Spectator article.

    I am not sure if Newt is truly reformed, but what the hell? What else do I have to choose from. The Spectator article defines Romney to a ‘T’ and I don’t want any of that.

    Besides, Newt makes for great theater! And that speech tonight was excellent.

  • stumpy

    Thanks for giving real conservatives some hope. This former Perry guy is glad your smacking down the Romney inevitablity narrative.

    Thanks Gov. Perry for knowing when to make a “strategic withdrawal” and throwing your support Newt’s way.

    For those who attack Ron Paul, I for one hope he pulls out Virginia. All Newt and Santorum supporters should vote for Paul just to deny Romney the delegates. While I have major disagreements with Paul, he should be given a prominate speaking spot at the convention. (If it is brokered, he had a very outside chance to win, per EE’s analysis.). We need as many Paul voters as possible. The hard cores will likely stay home, but the young and softer Paul supporters could vote R if he is treated with respect. Newt and Perry both seem to get this. It would also lessen the chance he mounts a third party bid if he is given his due respect.

  • steeltube

    That has been an interesting relationship.

    Aside from Hannity, the on air Fox talent seem to have a real visceral dislike of him. And look at how quick they were to drop him as a paid commentator as soon as he said he might consider running,

    The last laugh is on Fox though. They paid Palin millions in the hopes she would be the nominee and they would get sole access. She not only didn’t run but she announced her decision on Mark Levin’s show. And she semi endorsed Newt this week.

  • krish

    Erick’s comment that the “Washington establishment will lose the house & not get the senate” …was mentioned by Rush, may be a month ago? Rush mentioned that the Washington establishments wantede Mitt all along because they did not see any Republican beating Obama & the best person on our team who will Not rock the boat is Romney (reading between Rush lines…..a guy who will not call Obama a Marxist or debate him fiercely!). Obama will get reelected & House & Senate will go to Republicans! Republicans will control the money & it is their turn to spend the money!

    Newt, Conservatives & Tea Partyers are screwing up the plan! Watch out Newt, the Republican establishment will be vicious in their attacks against Newt! ABC interview will be nothing!

    Time for Florida Conservatives & Tea Partyers to stand with Newt (nice to have a Rubio semi-endorsement like Palin’s?) & send another message to Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, some in the Fox Channel, House & Senate leadership, many others

  • clintonformccain

    of the Washington GOP establishment for 30 years. You don’t get any more Establishment than Speaker of the House and veteran Washington lobbyist.

    That’s why he’s such an awful nominee. You can’t even sell him as a fresh face.

    The Republican Party has lost its ever-loving mind. It’s a shame. The White House was there for the taking with a good candidate. Instead, they are going with a guy who doesn’t even have enough campaign to get on state ballots.

  • rememberthealamo

    The typical establishment screed that “we’ll lose the House and Senate if you don’t accept the candidate WE pick.”

    Buddy, we’d have more Repub Senators today except the moderate Republicans refused to support Tea Party candidates that won primaries over establishment picked candidates. But you guys are the first to tell Conservatives to support Moderates that win primaries!

    I’ve had it with you two-faced, do-as-I-say types. No more votes or support for Establishment candidates just to get the letter R in the win column. Establishment Repubs are no different than the Ds on the other side of the aisle.

    And btw, I’m a member of our county Repub Exec Committee. But a Conservative FIRST. Sign me a card-carrying member of this revolt!

  • snowshooze

    Career bureaucrats against the real world types..
    Half a piece sign…lol

  • stumpy

    He will need the down ballot R’s to help him have any shot. General election polls are worthless at this point. See Reagan/Carter 1980 for an example. You can’t gauge GE polls until the primaries ate over or at least consolidated. This is Newt’s first real momentum, backed up by real votes.

  • snowshooze

    Yep… pure establishment.
    Nope.. he is the original Rogue.

  • carolina

    She did not go to the Romney campaign tonight. She made a mistake endorsing Romney.

  • snowshooze

    Well put.

  • clintonformccain

    I agree that Mitt is a crappy candidate. Unfortunately, he’s the best the Republican party can manage to nominate this time around. Look at the freak show field? Only two of them are even competent enough to get on the ballots — and one of those if from the planet Kingon.

    I’m resigned to the fact that the Republicans simply don’t have a good candidate to run in 2012. It’s a shame, because the White House was there for the taking.

  • romeg

    of the SC race.

    Newt won, OVERWHELMINGLY, every single demographic breakdown except 2: Those with incomes above $200,000 and those under 29 years of age with Mitt taking the former and Ron Paul the latter.

    He outperformed Huckabee and McCain both and is likely to do the same in FL IF he can raise funds in the next 10 days to buy air time in FL between now and their primary.

    As Erick said earlier “So much for Newt’s unelectability”

  • bonnman

    but the independents in the general might. I think the concern is that Newt plays well with voters during the primary and they’ll cut him a lot of slack but the general is an entirely story

  • usedtobelib

    American voters will go for a man they view as a college professor, an arrogant college professor, at that, (funny, usually the Right hates college professors who think they know everything) and the dyed blonde bimbo with diamonds from Tiffany’s dripping from her neck as FLOTUS????

    Michelle Obama never looked better to the American people.

    Some of you are so blinded by something or another, you can’t see straight.

    Since when has Newt been a friend to the Tea Party?

    What is/are his “grand ideas”?

    You’ve attacked Mitt Romney’s ideas as not bold enough.

    Newt uses the word phrase “Bold Ideas” and hasn’t articulated a single one.

  • pttx333

    like a more ladylike way to put it IMHO. ;-)

    Yeah, we are at war with the good ole GOP boys – I’ve HAD IT with them! Next, they’re gonna be pushing for Jeb, and I’m not having that either. More of the same ole, same ole establishment.

    Still haven’t heard anything from the mods about your request. Maybe you could nudge ‘em a bit?

  • usedtobelib

    But let me ask you this: if your dream were indeed to come true, that Newt occupied the White House, just what do you think he would actually do that would reform anything?

    He was dragged kicking and screaming into the welfare reform, something he tried TO BACK OUT OF.

  • Locke

    to be, a utopian, one whose thinking is too frequently unconstrained in ways that draw him away from what I still believe is his conservative core. Whenever he comes up with a new grand idea, he needs to ask whether and to what extent its objectives can be achieved without government.

    More seriously, before he unleashes any criticism of one broadly on the same side, he needs to adopt the attitude of a confessor of sins and consult one or more stable conservative friends.

    Romney needs to learn to explain and defend conservative principles with passion. And he needs to hire staff that will prevent him from being oblivious of obvious vulnerabilities.

    I think Romney has the easier task, as he does not need to fight his own ego, and has no major past blunders to explain away or live down.

    What a race it will be if each is spurred to continue to improve.

  • usedtobelib

    You are absolutely dreaming if you think the AVERAGE voter remembers anything other than Newt’s otherwise younger visage.

    The Dems will remind everyone of his scandal…and it will stick. He hasn’t Obama’s charm. Newt is Newt–caustic, arrogant, evasive, things you can stand, things independents and Dems, whose votes we need, can’t stand.

  • conservativeparrothead

    Is a National Congressional campaign. I believe, that if he is the nominee, he will come up with a list of promises, similar to the original CWA, that candidates will sign and that he can take to the American people and say, if you vote for us, this is what we can do!!!

  • tailfins1959

    The Reform Party in Canada (unfettered conservative) and Kadima (moderate party) were formed and were about as durable as morning fog. People like to their government to be supported by a majority.

    A successful GOP has a conservative majority and some moderates for “padding”.

  • usedtobelib

    they are blinded by their own bias,

    People who aren’t Republicans HATE Newt Gingrich. I don’t mean they want to learn more about him–they hate him.

  • carolina

    That will make him acceptable to a significant number of the Paul supporters, which could be key at the convention.

  • aesthete

    says that Obama has no chance. Personally, I’m inclined to believe that Romney is a candidate who can lose this thing, or who will make no difference as the victor: like Kerry, he suffers from thus far unexploited imaging problems and has no reason for his Presidential campaign.

  • krish

    It is a sad but TRUE that CNN is more balanced than Fox. Everyone in Fox is against Newt. Most people that appear in Fox are part of Washington Republican establishment & are all RINOs. Their opinion of Conservatives & Tea Partyers similar to Democrats – bunch of hicks living in the fly over country!

    Hannity used to be acceptable. Recently, I see he also has seen the light (may be a friedly chat from bosses upstairs) and now he is cozying up to Romney with cream puff questions making look like a conservative!

  • usedtobelib

    hear you or me–after all, they think we are “establishment.” Yeah, me, little old school teacher me.

  • stumpy

    Swing voters are mostly uninformed squishies. They flow toward the passionate base because they either don’t know or don’t care about the real substance. This is evident in each election. When the base isn’t excited, the squishies won’t follow. Passion against Obama will not be enough. People are motivated by passion, not dislike.

    Look at every election since at least 1968, measure the Passion or lack thereof and see if we are not right. Moderation by ideology is a loser strategy. Clinton’s reelection is probably the only one to pull it off and he had an even more moderate to run against who had no personality.

  • rickperryreport

    But the reality TV show GOP primary process attempted to humiliate the only candidate with a record of getting stuff like reform done. See how that turned out?

    So, we’re left with a choice between McCain v. 2.0 vs. the unhinged streetfighter.

    Country’s gone to hell anyway, I’d rather watch a good WWF fight with the streetfighter than attend Sunday afternoon ballet with Gordon Gekko.

  • bonnman

    Newt will grab disaffected Dems and independents.

  • usedtobelib

    if he were to be elected, please tell me what Newt Gingrich would do to make your life and the life of this country better?

    What plan does he have? What do his years as a pol show that he would go to bat for, die for?

    What principles has he ever held, never broken?

    what, help me understand. Oh, I understand that you and others like that he sounds good going into battle, but those are just words.

    What has he really ever done. Don’t tell me the welfare stuff, because he tried to sabatoge that from getting accomplished so worried about his political future was he.

  • conservativeparrothead

    Of “Newt was driven out by Conservatives” is as baloney as Mitt Romney not a politician.

    - Its one thing, if after you got rid of big bad Newt who betrayed your trust (Tom Coburn) that you actually governed Conservatively. But instead, after you not only got rid of Newt, but also got a Republican in the White House, you blew a hole through the budget and ran up the deficit.

    Shall we look at the rest of the greatest hits of your “conservative” accomplishments Post-Newt:

    1. Did you move to get rid of the Department of Education and get money back to the states? NOPE – we got the strong conservative NCLB.

    2. Medicare Reform – Sure, got Prescription Drug benefits for seniors not paid for.

    3. Tax Cuts – Ah Yes, very moderate Tax Cuts which included sending out $300 checks…that cost tax payers millions to send the letters to these people explaining what these were!!!! How Conservative!!!

    Despite a majority in house senate and the Presidency did you reform any entitlements? Tighten the border? Privatize Social Security?

    NOPE.

    Talk about a breach of trust!!!!

  • usedtobelib

    You think they’re happy with Newt?

    We have a fractured party.

    Obama wins. It’s already over.

  • romeg

    Ours is a Winner Take All system. There is no place for a major third party because there is no issue dividing the nation to the degree that slavery did in the mid 19th century. The last Third Party Candidate to win the Presidency was Abe Lincoln. Modern Third Party candidates choose that route so that they can assuage their bruised egos by denying one of the mainstream parties a victory. This was the case with “Aitch” Ross Perot and with Ralph Nadir.

    It makes much more sense to pick a party and work to change it from the inside as the Tea Party movement is doing and as the Libertarian Party is doing with Ron Paul’s candidacy. You’ll get much further down the field than you will with a third party.

  • Locke

    nt.

  • trevorb

    they don’t seem to realize is that this is not a game; this is a war. We are going to make sure Obama is a one term president. Gingrich was not my first choice, but he has the willpower to take the offensive. We can’t win this election playing defense the way McCain did; we have to go on the attack.

  • lapert

    Can’t speak for Canada but Israel gives you no evidence that third parties don’t work. For starters, the government is not directly elected by a majority as it is a coalition of parties. Kadima in particular did lead the coalition government under Olmert and while Livni lost her coalition because one of the parties pulled out in the following election that formed the current Kenesset they still won more seats than Likud who is leading the coalition government.

    Bottom line, the nature of the parliamentary system is not comparable to ours at all. We try to form our coalition before the election they do it after.

  • HaroldHutchison

    To tell everyone about it.

    But I suppose that the Anybody But Romney crowd will take solace that they beat Mitt.

  • WillWong

    Told him that i am pissed that the establishment is trying to shove Romney down our throat. Told him that any money that i planned on giving to the RNC is now going to Newt! I can almost feel the FEAR on the other end of the phone line! Something tells me that mine wasn’t the first!

  • furiouschads

    Wooden
    Inevitable
    Electable (I don’t like him but normal people will vote for him.)
    Privileged
    Well funded
    Moderate (in his party?s view)
    From Mass.
    Francophone
    French-lover
    Flipflopper
    Slow to respond (He should have released his returns the day after Newt.)

  • HaroldHutchison

    Twice traded his wife for a new model – and test-drove said new model while still married. Both wives who he left has serious illnesses (cancer and MS).

    There is the matter of the ethics violations, his complaining about Air Force One (remember how that got spun?), his cozying up to Pelosi on global warming…

  • HaroldHutchison

    Mitt can win the general election. I have yet to see proof that Gingrich can.

    If anything, Newt’s track record indicates he loses in a Goldwater-esq

  • WillWong

    The poll on The second Tuesday of Nov 2012!

  • Common_Cents

    Turnout will be hugely impt against obummer

  • Samsara

    and that includes Fox News. Hannity’s radio show is carried by Premiere Radio Network, subsidiary of Clear Channel, which was purchased by Bain Capital in 2006.

    http://presstv.com/usdetail/221076.html

    I know, old news…but that is what Newt is up against.

  • melissaann

    It’s nice to hear something positive. We’ve got to stop kicking the crap out of who we have and give credit where it is due. We’ve done nothing but deluge Romney, ignore Santorum, and dismiss Paul (which, in Paul’s case, might be a good idea, but he’s got some good things to say..). All the flipping whiners and complainers: shut up! God, we know how much our candidates suck already!!! Maybe hate hate on Obama for a while and remind us that we really do want him out and that we haven’t changed our minds..

  • izoneguy

    It becomes so clear…..

    The SOPA debacle is clear example of the elite’s trying to help the elite’s…..

    Yes – they are driven by fear that they will be driven out of DC…..

    Nothing like a clear & present danger to get your mind focused.

  • pttx333

    “get it.” But they will – oh, yes, they will. Newt’s win, when they thought Romney was a shoo-in, better put the fear of God in ‘em. He’s certainly not my first choice (Perry was that), but by voting for Newt they sent a very strong message to them – “you will not tell us who to vote into office – no more,”

  • SoFiMil

    Their only hope for a 2nd chance now is a brokered convention. Once again the “conventional wisdom” of *all* the “experts” is wrong as yet more “unexpected” data comes to light.

  • izoneguy

    is probably back in Austin flipping Romney and DC the bird…..
    And laughing his ass off -

  • haners

    The nation politically is a lot closer to New Hampshire than to South Carolina.

    Newt Gingrich is unelectable nationally in the general, period.

  • kipling

    They cite the exit polls but no exit polls deal specifically with Mormonism.

    http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/south-carolina/exit-polls

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/01/21/why-romney-lost-part-i/

  • haners

    Good luck with that plan.

  • SoFiMil

    but here goes… If Romney gets the nomination he will have a very difficult time winning the Presidency. And yes, he’ll have my unenthusiastic support. While I would want him to win, and not one part of me wants him to lose, an unexpected Romney win will further embolden the establishment to continue moving left. Tough times ahead, even assuming Romney gets both the nomination and the Presidency.

    We had some exceptional candidates the last two cycles in Fred Thompson and Rick Perry. Oh, what might have been…

  • SoFiMil

    To fully test the theory requires a conservative LDS candidate.

  • aesthete

    but the South was just fine electing a Papist by wide margins over the only two Protestants in the race. Methinks the religion angle is overplayed.

  • SoFiMil

    .

  • Hooah_Mac

    By belittlement and dismissal. This time didn’t take Newt seriously and went after Perry, even using Newt as a tool for that. They are probably confused about how their well laid plan blew up in their faces.

    The elites are very afraid of the tea party, because it represents a real threat to their ability to gain and maintain power for themselves. R’s at that level are not different from D’s. They want the power in Washington, they just want to be the ones controlling it.

    Both Fred!! and Perry threatened that. I’m sure the decision to go after Perry in anyway possible was made the moment he said he wanted to make Washington D.C. as inconsequential in our lives as possible. I’m not even trying to make the case that there is some kind of conspiracy, just a bunch of individual actors with the same goal.

    I am backing Newt now, not without trepidation, but fully supporting him. I donated to his campaign tonight. He IS a three-legged stool conservative(although not a historically consistent one), and if he can campaign with Congressional candidates on a unified 2012 Contract with America, it may be a clean sweep for the GOP…whether that will change business as usual remains to be seen.

  • pttx333

    than someone else to the American people, regardless of what you think. I’m not thrilled with our options here, but the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette looks better?

    I fail to understand where you get some of your loco ideas.

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    but after using a system that has helped make him rich, my confidence that he will destroy that said system is not very strong. I can only hope, but it is clear after this week Romney is bad, very bad at this, and having Newt at least makes this fun, and I would love to see the establishment beat back, even if it cost us the white house. What happens if they are right?

    Here is my worry, what if Newt win the nomination, but loses against Obama.

    We would be hard pressed to convince anyone that a conservative can ever win the general election again. They will all say I told you so, and it won’t be the conservatives that did it, it will be the record of the man they chose, but the establishment will still have that weapon, this is my worry.

  • cynic19006

    http://www.bradenton.com/2012/01/13/3788717/gingrich-takes-on-romney-immigration.html

    Of course, there were the dubious Bain attacks. now Gingrich is attacking Romney from the left on immigration, saying he is pandering to “hardliners.” That’s interesting – after Bush and McCain, you’d think those same conservatives who banded to defeat amnesty bills would actually want a Republican standardbearer who reflected their values. That candidate is Mitt Romney.

    But while Romney gets attacked viciously by the media for being “right-wing” on immigration (i.e., believes American citizens don’t need to take a back seat to illegal aliens), where are the conservatives to defend and fight for him? In massachusetts, he empowered police to arrest on immigration violations. He’s certainly the best remaining candidate on the issue. It is absolutely comical to me that the “conservative” base is willing to bet on a self-described “Reagan conservative” who is attacking Romney on the LEFT on so many major issues.

    Hispandering is a fatal strategy long-term. The only was “Hispanics” will ever vote Republican in decent amounts is if we select for those that are more skilled – i.e. not illegal aliens. The more we pander to illegal aliens the more come here. And they’re vast majority Democrat. There’s a reason California is impossible for Republicans to win now, and there’s a reason Texas will be tougher and tougher to win in the coming decades. Demographic changes will doom this party if we don’t do something about it. And that something is not shameless pandering by a “reagan conservative” who is anything but.

  • runner12

    And a spot on description of the GOP establishment.

  • cynic19006

    Obama with a Democrat House and Senate would be a nightmare we would never recover from.

  • pttx333

    b.o. wins. They keep their little fiefdoms and everything is still hunky-dory with them. I SPIT on them and all they represent!

  • redcal

    And he’s still the likely nominee. For all of her national attention, she’s surprisingly weak. Maybe she was inspired by Romney’s own ability to launch a national campaign after one mediocre term in office with approval ratings in the 30′s.

  • runner12

    Perry in order to hand Mittens the nomination is some consolation to me. Yes, they were successful at taking out Perry. But it was all for naught, because Mittens is on the downhill slide and the DC establishment looks incredibly foolish tonight.

    I am certain more than one regrets their decision to go after Perry. I am not in the Newt camp yet, but I am thrilled that he put a chink in the establishment’s plans to coronate Mittens tonight.

  • redcal

    …that Gingrich will simply alienate the middle. But Romney seems to be alienating everyone – the middle, the left, and the right. His favorability ratings get lower and lower the longer people look at him in debates. Whereas Gingrich actually gets more attractive (cough) with more exposure.

    It’s a question of which Gingrich shows up to play. The petulant, undisciplined enfant terrible that we saw in December? Or the brilliant, inclusive, tenacious street fighter that we saw in the speech tonight? He seems to be more disciplined than he was a few months ago; if it’s not a fluke, he has a real shot at grabbing the middle. Mitt Romney, conversely, seems to be getting worse (awkward, gaffe-prone, unbalanced) with practice.

  • HaroldHutchison

    Bad Newt is far more likely to appear. He’s shown up in the last three years with his comments on the Ryan budget, the NY-23 race, and the Bain Capital attacks.

  • Flagstaff

    I can guess some of what it means, but can’t be sure of all of it.

    In South Carolina exit polls, Romney wins only the ?moderate or liberal?, those with incomes in excess of $200,000.00, those with postgraduate education, those who oppose the tea party movement, and those who think religion does not matter at all.

    I assume that means other demographic groups all went for either Santorum or Gingrich or Paul (oh my!) But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t continuing support for Romney in those other groups. So this observation by Erick isn’t on quite such solid ground:

    But he cannot get the votes of those who think we need to reform and reduce the power of Washington, which I venture to say is a sizable portion of the base.

    Head-to-head against Newt he came up very short today, but that doesn’t equate to “very few of those who voted for Newt would vote for Romney against Obama.”

    The argument is being distilled into “Newt is the guy we’d like to elect, but can he beat Obama?” And “Mitt isn’t as inspiring as we’d like, but he’s a lot more comforting to a lot of people than Newt is.” Tonight, Newt’s favorable/unfavorable ratio in Florida is reported to be about 25/50 (or maybe that’s the way a Newt/Barry match shakes out). Which brings me to my next point:

    Newt has the ideas we like, but if he can’t get elected, what good are they? And Mitt’s ideas aren’t that bad. They don’t satisfy those who demand a set of BOLD changes, but I’d rather have the right changes than bold, impossible ones–after all, what is Obamacare if not BOLD? Not that I feel like finding some bad ideas on Newt’s website. It’s just a philosophical observation. And, if we don’t defeat him, Barry gets to try some more of his own boldness.

    We saw the Good Newt tonight after the results were in. Charming, magnanimous towards his Republican counterparts, antagonistic towards, Obama, and generally the guy we’ll need to see from now on if he hopes to turn those negatives around. If the Bad Newt shows up, the one with the snarky one-liners against Romney and the others (although he doesn’t need to bother with the others at all), he’ll simply start to erode the good will he’s generated the last few days. If I were him, I’d cool it even if Mitt hit me with both barrels below the belt IF HIS CHARGES HAD SOME TRUTH TO THEM. If they were untrue, I’d just correct the record without calling Mitt a liar, etc. But that’s me. I think that a classy response beats a nasty one every time.

    The Good Newt told us again tonight how he was going to challenge Obama to a series of ultra-long debates. I have my doubts that there will be ANY debates under the circumstances he described, and even under the rules Obama will insist on I suspect that there may be only one, no more than three. So our hope of nominating the Debate King isn’t all that important, IMHO.

    Finally, re: Newt v. Mitt–if Newt does get elected, how will it go? Can he get along with Congressional leadership, or will he try to be President, Speaker and Republican Senate Leader all at once?

    These are the kinds of questions that people who are not conservative die-hards, but who are willing to vote for not-Obama may be thinking about, and those are the folks who will probably decide the election. If Newt can turn around his negatives among non-conservatives, most of the hesitancy to support him goes away.

    I missed Dan McLaughlin’s column the other day, so I reserve the right to take it all back after I read it.

  • HaroldHutchison

    So the average person is supposed to believe that a Christine O’Donnell can fix the budget when she can’t handle her own taxes?

  • Samsara

    New York Times:

    One of the biggest questions for Mr. Romney has been the impact of his Mormon faith in a heavily evangelical state like South Carolina.

    Voters were not asked about that explicitly in exit polls, but among those who came to vote looking for someone who shared their religious beliefs, Mr. Romney did not do well.

    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/lessons-from-the-south-carolina-exit-polls/

  • Flagstaff

    I think I misread your intent. If you meant “If Newt beats Romney in the end, for the nomination,” I agree, Mike.

  • redcal

    The Ryan budget comments were a gaffe, obviously. But the Bain Capital attacks weren’t; they weakened Romney, and when the backlash started, Gingrich cleanly pivoted to a different angle. NY-23 was essentially regional and didn’t affect him for better or worse; plus, he apologized for it afterwards. I suspect that you may not be appreciating the political strategy on the Bain Capital attacks. They were timed perfectly, and kicked off Gingrich Comeback 2.0.

  • kipling

    I agree with all the comments but the charge of Mormon bigotry may be used in an attempt to get others to fall in line.

    The vague religious question could very well have to do with abortion rather than Mormon faith.

  • rememberthealamo

    Typical lib, won’t stay on topic. So you prefer someone like the current Treas Sec with his sterling record of not paying taxes? Or the ilk of McCain and the Astronaut and their Keating 5 money scandal? Or perhaps Mittens, who won’t even show us his tax records?

    Go back to the subject. Moderate Repubs always pull this “vote for our guy or we’ll lose Congress” crap. And the Washington establishment NOT supporting Tea Party Repub candidates cost us seats in the Senate and House.

    We Conservatives are tired of support for Repub candidates going one way. It’s like the Dems and their racism card. You’ve pulled this too often, chicken little!

  • Finrod

    Newt uses the word phrase ?Bold Ideas? and hasn?t articulated a single one.

    Where were you in 1994? There was this thing called the Contract With America, you may have heard of it.

    Newt articulates more conservative ideas in the average week than Romney has in his entire life.

  • rememberthealamo

    Really? The Northeast is more liberal than the South, the Midwest, the West. But the population has now shifted to Southern and Western states. More voters consider themselves Conservatives, and more voters live in Red leaning states.

    Plus our President is helping turn voters more Conservative by the day. Mitt won NH because a) they’re his neighbors and b) he campaigned there for 8 years.

  • Finrod

    IIRC Reagan was double digits behind Carter at this point in 1980.

    Got any other stupid arguments you’d like to advance?

  • Finrod

    Marianne at the time didn’t say she had MS until 2000, now she’s backdated that to 1998 to win the sympathy of suckers like you.

    Newt’s daughters are his biggest supporters. That should tell you something.

  • lineholder

    Rush Limbaugh pointed out a few comments yesterday indicating that the left is already taking this approach. And I think if members of the establishment are trying to protect a vested interest that they might have in Romney, they could take this approach as well. To minimize the outcome of the primary as much as they can.

  • lineholder

    ,

  • aesthete

    nt

  • Finrod

    .

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    but she is hardly a bimbo. Take a look at her bio here.

    And Newt teaching at West Georgia College and a military university is not quite the same category as a liberal elite teaching at Harvard.

  • Adjoran

    or are you misrepresenting it intentionally?

    One might think you would learn some humility after your ridiculous hyping of Perry helped doom his candidacy from the start with unrealistic expectations.

  • drfredc

    When the RNC calls me asking for donations, I tell them I’ve got better things to do until the GOP benches McConnell as Senate GOP leader with someone who can clearly and concisely state, defend and promote conservative principles.

    Every time I hear McConnell talk, all I pick up is his love of political trench warfare. Beyond that, he leaves me clueless about what he and the GOP stand for except keeping the LOSERship’s power intact.

    As for Presidential candidate — Mitt or Newt, I can support either vs Obama… For me, getting Congress turned around and GOP LOSERship parked on the back benches is as important as winning the WH…

  • http://www.doctor-bob.biz rsklaroff

    listen @ 14:50 to The Newt…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsqEo95ogXA
    …and you will achieve surcease.

  • http://www.doctor-bob.biz rsklaroff

    …RS-bloggers, take a gander @ my summary of key-quotes from the open-line discussion last night.

    http://www.saveardmorecoalition.org/node/5848/rick-perry-hes-guy?page=3#comment-27105

    Many “messages” are sprinkled therein, but optimism prevails.

  • AceInTX

    Newt was not run out by “Conservatives”.

    He was shown the door by Delay, Livingston and others who wanted to build a “Permanent Majority” by spending taxpayer dollars to promote “Conservative Values” using the power of the state.

    The next speaker was Livingston and when he withdrew his name from consideration after the Demoncrats trashed him for his affairs…Dennis Freaking Hastert was elevated to the speaker’s chair….

    from there we got the big spending Congresses that brought us the K street Project, the bridge to nowhere…and the landslide defeat of Republicans in 2006

    The “Newt was fired by ‘Conservatives’ in Congress” is a damned dirty and contemptible lie.

    I’m not on the Newt train and as of now I’m in the Santurum camp because I don’t want to have to make excuses for Newt and his affairs…we’ll see how that plays…if he uses redemption as a theme and is convincing in his conversion….then that takes the affairs off the table….the second reason I have qualms about him is that he is a big mouth, braggart, an interminable blowhard and a scandal prone baffoon with a tin ear when it comes to ethics.

    But if Newt is to be the Not Romney…sign me up.

  • AceInTX

    He was fired by the bing spending Statist wing in Congress!

  • AceInTX

    I see him driving Conservative turnout down which will hurt good conservatives running for Congress and the Senate

  • AceInTX

    all I’ve seen the man do is chant “Olympics”, “private sector experience” and “Executive experience” like a mantra while attacking and trashing any and all Republicans who pose a threat to him.

    The man is an empty suit…worse…he’s an paper tiger….I watched him implode once when Perry challenged him on hiring illegal immigrants….he’s coasted along unchallenged before and since as the other candidates attacked each other trying to be the not Romney candidate….then this week…Santorum and Gingrich finally took it directly to him…and the man folded like a cheap suit….

    this whole campaign has been a sham about an inevitable, polished candidate who has it all in the bag….but as soon as he’s pushed…and knocked off his phoney and fake talking points and prepared remarks…he collapses and slinks away leaving a trail of pee behind him…

    If we put him up against Obama..We’re done!

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    nt

  • Common_Cents

    “South Carolina’s Republican voters set a new primary turnout record Saturday when more than 600,000 of them went to the polls, shattering the previous mark set in 2000.

    With 13 precincts still uncounted Sunday morning, 601,166 votes already were recorded, topping 2000′s turnout of 537,101 and well ahead of 2008′s 445,499 voters. Earlier in the week, officials had projected a moderate turnout about equivalent to the 2008 primary.”

    Gingrich is a threat to the DC establishment, so they are going to say he has no coattails. What phony BS.

    Newt is going to galvanize the tea party, especially if the tea party learns that DC is playing games to support santorum to neutralize Gingrich.

  • ctredstater

    Presidency.

    I have some connections to both men – and they are both very decent, solid individuals. People you would love to have as a relative. People you would be ;proud if they were your boss, your CEO, etc.

    Smart, honorable, accomplished, disciplined men. One thing Romney has which has gotten almost no attention is he graduated with honors from the Harvard JD/MBA program – an unbelievably hard program to even get into. His intellect runs rings around Obama’s.

    But we are in national peril. And we need a President who has more than a good resume and a desire to get the Ultimate Promotion. We need a President who sees clearly the peril America is in, and has solidly conservative founding Constitutionalist Principles deep in his or her (Palin) bones.

    Ronald Reagan had that. Governor Perry has that. Sarah Palin has that. Romney does not. Newt sort of does. he is not the best qualified by temperament or accomplishment to be a Great President. Out of this field, Perry was. But he is the bst we have standing, and he has my full support.

  • APA Guy

    Not exactly representative of the rest of the country.

  • Tbone

    Your posts prove that you are a fool.

  • jakeofalltrades

    Newt doesn’t have to win Florida IMO – a close finish may confirm his general electability depending on the breakdown.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    Newt survived the coup in the House. He resigned after the election because of the losses.

    Newt was never a registered lobbyist.

  • Common_Cents

    and you are throwing out head to head polls against Obama months out? LOL

    When we still have FOUR candidates in a circular firing squad NOT consolididated and focusing on obama?

    What a troll. You are really making yourself look stupid. Keep posting this stuff. LMAO.

  • APA Guy

    Carter +6 over Reagan…Gallup…likely voters…week of October 24-27, 1980.

    In case you can’t make the connection, we’re running against Carter this time around (high gas prices…deficits…flailing economy). He just changed his name to Obama for the 2012 rendition.

  • conservativeparrothead

    DEBATES…which candidate does that favor again???

  • APA Guy

    In fact, if memory serves, they do the kos kids polling. Guess they’re in on the fantasy as well.

    Here’s the truth: The left is PETRIFIED of running against Gingrich. He will make Obama look the fool on the debate stage (three times) and can articulate conservative policies that the country desperately craves.

  • APA Guy

    nt

  • APA Guy

    Guess we’ll just have to settle for winning the other 40 states between the coasts…landslide.

  • danram

    …. willl vote for Barack Obama and the GOP will lose in a rout. Gingrich would be lucky to get 40% of the vote in a general election matchup against Obama.

    Haven’t you idiots learned anything from the recent Senate elections in Nevada and Delaware? Both races were emminently winnable for the Republicans, but you hard core right-wing loons insisted on nominating two absolutely awful candidates because they were ideologically pure “true conservatives”. The results were predictable and now we have to look at Harry Reid for another six years. Thanks a lot.

    Yeah, I’m sure the “base was energized” in both races. The problem that you lunkheads can’t seem to comprehend is that the almighty “base” only accounts for about 20% of the voting population!!!!

    Looks like you’re bound and determined to try and repeat the same mistake again. Hopefully, now that the race is moving on to other states where the percentage of dumb, racist rednecks is significantly lower than in South Carolina, Gingrich will fade and Romney’s superior financing and organizational skills will prevail.

    But there is no way that I will ever vote for a complete and utter scumbag like Newt Gingrich. I can promise you that tens of millions of moderate Republicans across the country feel the same way. I wouldn’t trust Newt to wash my car. I sure as hell am not going to trust him with the most powerful office in the world where he would be making decisions that directly affect me and my family.

    How many of the people that Newt worked with in Congress back in the 1990s are now supporting his candidacy? ZERO!!! Doesn’t that tell you something? Oh yeah … I forgot …. It’s the “establishment”, right? Laughable.

    As an aside, it really is comical how many of you who absolutely ripped Bill Clinton back in 1996 for his affair with Monica Lewinsky now seem perfectly willing to give Newt Gingrich a free pass. You’re all hypocrites, just like he is.

  • jakeofalltrades

    I seem to remember Newt beating Obama head-to-head, just like Mittens.

  • Common_Cents

    I love all this fear mongering.

  • APA Guy

    In fact, in 1997 then-UN Ambassador Bill Richardson offered Monica Lewinsky a job on his staff. The scandal wasn’t broken by Drudge until January of 1998.

    Sheesh…get some facts before you troll…idiot.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    then hop on the Santorum bandwagon.

  • trevorb

    he’s giving Obama a great deal of pause as well. Gingrich has a vicious side to him and I’d much rather he launch it against Obama than the republican party. Much as we might hate it, negative ads work, and Obama’s got plenty of things to use.

    I look forward to seeing how people turn against him this summer when the price of gas skyrockets.

  • conservativeparrothead

    Here is the distinction that Newt needs to make.
    This is not an assault on Capitalism or the Free Market, this is what Conservatives are mostly about, letting the market work, but when people screw it up or screw people over…calling them out on it. A democrat would simply like to eliminate the system all together with over-regulation.

    Is the issue Bain or Venture/Investment Capitalism- No, nobody has a problem with that, except maybe the left who want Government and tax dollars investing in those companies instead of private companies. If an investment company INVESTS and loses, nobody has a problem with that or putting those losses on taxes, nobody has a problem with that.

    The problem, is that it appears that Bain was often times not “risking” anything, they would come in, pump these companies up with debt, and when the companies failed, THEY DIDNT LOSE ANYTHING, THEY STILL GOT THEIRS…meanwhile the average joe in this thing lost the job, lost their stocks, etc…That is the problem people have, its not them risking their capital and being rewarded when it paid off or being able to write off a loss when it didnt, Its the fact that often times for them there was no risk, it was a gamed system.

    Its the same thing with lending practices that led to financial crisis in 2008, the guys at the top who were making all the moves didnt take the hit, it was the taxpayers who had to bail them out for what they had done. Again, if EVERYONE loses when things go bad, fine. But when the system is rigged so its a “no-lose” for some, that is when people get angry.

    That should be the angle Newt is approaching this thing…

  • AceInTX

    …

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    They don’t care about Romney’s core or lack thereof. In fact, Status Quo is fine.

    What they fear is losing.

    if they lose with Romney it will be “the unreliable base let us down”

    If they lose with Gingrich it will be “proof we cant let those Tea Party crazies nominate un-electable doofus candidates” (Shades of Sharron Angle, COD etc.)

    Never mind that THEY have nominated their shares of losers. We nominate moderates (Matt Fong anyone?) who get pasted. We let status quo pols lose (DeWine) etc.

    I would grant one thing: Romney is more likely to beat obama than Newt. But IMHO both can beat Obama if they run a good campaign, and quite frankly Newt’s campaign out-did Romney’s campaign this past week. Easily.

  • jatx

    Control above all else IS the “establishment’s” only agenda.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    like its morning in America.

    Don’t disagree that Obama’s economic record is weak, but we have serious liberal MSM bias and headwind and they will have a lot of Gingrich’s own history to use in a campaign of distraction.

    “You are dreaming if you think you can dispositively predict the future.”

    That I agree with 100%.
    But what we can easily predict is that Obama will make the election about the negatives of the GOP candidate and NOT his failed record.

  • AceInTX

    and that money spends a lot easier on Mitt than Newt because Romney has basically written Obama’s adds by has actions and statements over his score of years seeking and failing to achieve higher office by telling EVERYONE what they want to hear!

  • AceInTX

    Maybe in your mind….

    Conservatives still walk tall in Texas and most of the south and west.

    NH is full if left wing weenines and candy assed moderates who quake at the idea of a fight!

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    more later

  • AceInTX

    I first became politically active in the 90s and I remember that time…I remember the Democrats throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Newt….they turned the ethics committee into a circus filing a new complaint almost every day….

    Newt had a proctological exam in front of the entire country….and he was acquitted on mostly every single count…..

    The fact is….Newt leaves himself open to these attacks by skirting the line…but in most every case he was found to have committed none of the acts he was accused of…

    Can anyone detail what he was accused of in every instance and what he was actually found to have comitted?

  • AceInTX

    Let’s crown him now!

  • acat

    Mew

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    you demonstrating that you’re either an ignorant jackass or a lying jackass.

  • AceInTX

    What if Newt creams Romney in Florida and a couple other states and Mitt drops out leaving Paul all alone on the ballot in VA.

    What will Bolling and McDonnell do then?

    It’s not a likely scenario….but not entirely impossible now is it?

    It’ll be amusing watcheng them tie themselves up in knots trying to justify adding Newt to the ballot with Romney gone if such a thing happened….

    Pass the popcorn….this could be hilariously tragic!!!

  • snowshooze

    They DESERVE it.

  • romansdaughter

    Man, I hope that happens…I would have such a good laugh and I know Scope would love it. LOL

  • AceInTX

    Perry sent him reeling over hiring illegals…”I can’t hire illegals…I’m running for President!”

    Now…Santorum and Newt took to to him on his taxes and he’s gone to pieces…

    His whole campaign has been remaining above it all and staying out of the fray while declaring himself inevitable as the Conservatives tear each other apart in a bid to be the not Romney….

    He’s coasted…it’s been gloves off by the other nominees and the press who hope to have milktoast Mitt….the flip flopper extraordinaire to run against their boy Berry….

    Newt and Rick need to pound him in FL this week and during the next couple debates…and the two man race will be between Newt and Rick not Newt and Mitt!

  • AceInTX

    1980, 1984, 1992, 1994, 2000, 2004…

    Prove me wrong….I challenge you to prove me wrong…I’ve got history to back me up!

  • AceInTX

    all we’ve gotten from Willard “The Rat” Romney is negative, lie laden attacks on any Republican who has risen to threaten him…and childish stunts like sending Newt a cake on the anniversary of his ethics committee investigation findings…

    What an unmitigated ass!

  • AceInTX

    ….

  • AceInTX

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/romney-campaign-sent-gingrich-a-cake-marking-anniversary-of-house-reprimand/

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    http://www.redstate.com/gamecock/

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    at that same link!

  • jakeofalltrades

  • avagreen

    as I’ve stated before and which I told Brett Baier about when he ansered my email months ago, and gave them an earful about FOX. The person asking the questions, in fact, reminded me that I could add “comments” after I’d voted down FOX.

    Maybe more people are catching on.

  • Scope

    Granted McDonnell and Bolling, and the VA GOP deserve it, but us VA voters don’t. But I know you didn’t mean that.

  • jakeofalltrades

    Missed ya!

  • AceInTX

    How would the ass clowns explain a primary election with only Ron Paul on the ballot and no write ins allowed….

    It would serve them right….I know it would suck for you…but it will take something like that to burn their behinds to stop their shenanigans!

  • Scope

    you have no idea how much of a possibility it is that Paul will win VA. We have open primaries, and those are the states that Paul will get many cross-over votes in, along with his very strong C4L organization here. They are everywhere.

  • Scope

    is that the Republicans have made the ballot access laws as strict as they are to keep kkoks and quacks from getting on the VA ballot. No lie. Now the joke may just well be on the brain surgeons that engineered this whole thing.

  • Scope

    and the only way to stop the shennigans that has gone on, blatantly here in VA, and in so many other states is to get their as$es burned. Remember that then Atty Gen. McDonnell made a backroom deal with then Lt. Gov. Bolling to bypass him for the Gov. seat in 09, in exchange for McDonnell endorsing him in 13. Noe Atty Gen. Cuccinelli is being tarred and feathered by the local GOP because he has the nerve to challenge Bolling for his promised Gov. seat in 13. I’m sitting out the primary this year, as I have a sneaking feeling that the Paulbots here in VA will pull it out for the King Kong of Kooks.

  • Scope

    I’ve been reading your crap, always do. LOL

  • jakeofalltrades

    ;)

  • Scope

    So don’t think to hard, it will bring on a dreaded hot flash.

  • floridaveteran

    http://www.newt.org/solutions/21st-century-learning-system
    http://www.newt.org/solutions/jobs-economy
    http://www.newt.org/solutions/tell-truth-about-national-security

    Then come back and we will talk.

  • greyeagle

    race and support Newt. He did, so now we have Newt. I would rather have him warts and all instead of the other three. Newt will work some with Governor Perry.

  • greyeagle

    has been terrible during this Primary season. They constantly trashed Perry and did a total black out. I would guess again the wishes of the GOP Elite to elect Romney. I have sent e-mails to Roger Ailes about their biased coverage and the fact they are losing viewers.

  • jakeofalltrades

  • Scope

    with a word or a symbol, hence my comment that I always read your crap. You are a master at being unoffensive while at the same time being a very precise annus. LOL

  • conservativepopulist

    Why are we seeing Newt’s success?
    Simple: The establishment gave us McCain over Huckabee, last time.
    This campaign is as much about going after the Republican establishment, as it is about beating Obama. The Republican establishment favors Republicans of course. But even if a Democrat wins, their attitude is basically, “He’s a Democrat so I oppose him. But at least he’s One Of Us.”
    They have the luxury of thinking this, because no matter what happens with the economy, the elites only have “paper” losses. They don’t suffer in any way, as far a paying their bills are concerned – God love ‘em.
    Meanwhile, the average person struggles every day just to make ends meet. And many of them, don’t. The establishment’s Wallstreet financial playground went bad, so what did the elites do? Why, they just told their cronies in he Congress to stick it to the American people!
    And they’re cocky, because they almost always, win.
    People aren’t stupid. With the explosion of cable news and the internet, we now have a window into exactly how politics really works: B.S. the public, obey the elites. My, what a cozy arrangement.
    But the common people aren’t playing around anymore. They establishment has the money; we have the votes. Money affects. Votes win.
    So no. No whining from the establishment now. We could have had Huckabee as President, reforming the government in a conservative way, fighting for balanced budgets, developing U.S. energy, and vetoing the government takeover of health insurance!
    But no… the establishment, in the form of National Review, The Weekly Standard, and the Club For Life, ganged up on Huckabee. A “liberal”, they called him.
    Their real problem with him? He… just wasn’t the kind of Guy, to join them in their cocktail parties. No “ivy league” education, either. Religious beliefs too! How quaint. Part of the classes of people that make them feel rather, you know, uncomfortable: if they have to be near them.
    This time, like 1980, we’re telling the establishment to take a long walk off a short bridge. We’re going to get the nominee WE want, this time! As Former Utah Senator Bob Bennet. We’re sick of those who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
    IS the establishment worried? Really?
    Good.
    We’re making progress, already.

  • WillWong

    and law enforcement types. Over here on RS, supporters of Huckabee were routinely pilloried as Huckabots! The Gov himself was routinely called the Huckster….

    Huckabee was short on funds and organization to fight back against the tons of negative ads. He was accused of raising taxes in Arkansas and releasing prisoners one of whom went to another state and murdered somebody. Funny that Romney raised hundreds of millions in fees and was given a pass by the Club of Growth.

    It appears that Romney was the Establishment’s candidate at that time but his preoccupation with bringing Huckabee down allowed a maverick McCain to sneak through.

    It is bitter sweet that the Evangelical leaders didn’t see it fit to endorse Huckabee, a much more viable candidate than Santorum. Despite that and running on a shoestring budget, Huckabee came within 3% of winning SC. Huckabee would have fare a lot better than McCain.

  • AceInTX

    Gingrich was not my first choice, but he has the willpower to take the offensive. We can?t win this election playing defense the way McCain did; we have to go on the attack.

  • AceInTX

    Newt will take the fight to Obama

    Mitt will play nice while Obama and his allies in the so called “Objective Media” tear at him hammer and tong only reacting…never taking the fight to them….

    Romney is a loser…he has loser written all over him…he’s proven it over 26 years losing election after election.

  • AceInTX

    He and the Media are cowards for playing it.

    It’s one of the reasons I loath Romney….Nit because he’s a Mormon or because I won’t vote for a Mormon….but because I’m sick of being accused of bigotry I do not have…

  • katem

    Neither of them is conservative; both have flipflopped on most issues. And both have electability problems. Gingrich might do well in a debate against Obama but has no executive skills and his record as speaker indicates he would likely be a poor president. Do we really want a nominee who can debate well 2 or 3 times but have real trouble attracting independent voters and actually governing? Romney has no core principles, cannot connect with voters and comes across as phony. His mishandling of questions about his taxes that he should have seen coming has been shocking and calls into question his readiness.

    Perry, Huntsman and Pawlenty were the only “small government conservatives” in this race. Their departures left us with not only two weak frontrunners but Santorum, a big government conservative with his own electability issues, and Paul, who is in the race to advocate his message and influence the convention.

    The clamoring for Bush, Daniels, Jindal or Christie to get into the race is ridiculous. Bush is a non-starter because the country will not elect him 4 short years after the still unpopular Bush 43 left office. (And it’s hard to make the case for a 3rd member of one family to be president ever.) There is no guarantee that any of the others would fare better than the candidates who had the courage to get into the race. Each of them has weaknesses as well as strengths.

    If a brokered convention is even within the realm of possibilities, Pawlenty and Huntsman should be the prime candidates for consideration. Both are far better conservatives than Romney and Gingrich and would also appeal to independents. (Perry’s many problems in the debates showed he was unprepared to run for the presidency. And his appeal to independents is far less than Huntsman’s and Pawlenty’s.)

  • rifemadson

    Erick, you are the establishment. The establishment is only truly afraid of one candidate and that is Ron Paul. You need to widen the camera lens.

  • rifemadson

    Gingrich and his followers are banking on one fact, that Newt will defeat Obama in the debates. While this is true, do you really think it will matter?

    If the electorate really understood the issues we would not have Barack Obama as president right now!

    Also, a fact that the media is not reporting is that it is virtually impossible for Gingrich or Santorum to win enough delegates to secure the nomination before the convention. Their only hope is a brokered convention due to the fact that they failed to even get on the ballot in so many states. The media doesn’t like pointing this out because they have an interest in propping up the horse race.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Really should be “Paulturd”.

  • txindependent

    ..and Romney is the worst candidate ever put up. I can’t believe the republican establishment is so stupid to promote him. He’s so unlikable, he makes Newt look like an angel.

  • powertothepeople

    of that incompetent fool or his POS followers. We just grow tired of hearing from so many low IQ idiot paultards such as yourself and the nasty sh*t smell you bring with you everywhere you go.

    As to the establishment or the so called establishment, I doubt anything Ron Paul crosses their mind. He is nothing more than a joke and not a good one at that.

  • http://www.gmsplace.com/ civil truth

    The intent for so much of the electorate, across the political spectrum, to turn an blind eye to history, repudiate rational analysis, and rely on current emotions may well be what sinks our representative democracy. 2008 was just the prodrome, it would appear.

  • rifemadson

    engage in childish name calling too. It is much easier than having to explain how the lifetime DC politican and lobbyist insider is now the “Anti-Establishment” candidate.

  • WillWong

    The only state that I know of is Virginia!

  • rifemadson

    to see this level of vitriol against the supporter of a different candidate. While I understand Ron Paul has some fringe element supporters, so do most candidates.

    I am not a 9-11 truther, black helicopter conspiracy theorist or an anti-Semite. I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and McCain in 2008. I am an OIF veteran and have spent the last 5 years working in the Middle East. I was like most of you before, the mainstream talk radio conservative. After spending a lot of time thinking about our current situation, the coming fiscal disaster and our unsustainable foreign policy, I decided to support the candidate who is actually talking about doing something different.

    I will most likely support the GOP nominee in the fall (unless it is Santorum) but even if they win nothing will fundamentally change. They will tinker around the edges but we will not drastically change course. More and more people are waking up though, and you can see it by looking at Ron Paul’s performance.

    God Bless.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    doofus.

    He’s been in DC for 30 years, on and off. His whole life is about being a critter who’s never introduced or sponsored a piece of legislation on any of his “key issues”. Nor has he been able to make one ally for any of these issues.

    What the schmuck has been able to do is build a big mailing list of bigots and anti-Semites who subscribe to his “newsletter” and become the king of earmarks in the House.

    You’re an ignorant ass.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    an enabler of racists and bigots and troofers and birfers. Which just makes you an ignorant fool.

  • WillWong

    Very smart play!

  • WillWong

    Very smart play!

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    BTW, it’s absurd to talk of Huntsman and Pawlenty as ‘small govt’ and Santorum as ‘big govt’ when Santorum NEVER fell for the global warming BS, but Pawlenty had to walk back his global warming support, and Huntsman dissed the conservative base on this. Neither candidate was proposing more in spending reductions than Santorum.

    If they were better conservatives, they would have been more than asterisks in support.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    But it goes both ways.

    You wont even support and vote for Santorum if he is the GOP nominee?!? You will ‘most likely support’!?!? In my book that is vitriol worse than laughing at Ron Paul’s more kooky supporters.

    f there is anyone who is for ‘tinker around the edges’ and ‘do nothing’ its the fair weather friends who will let Obama get a second term and pass over candidates who will get in there and do what they want done – repeal Obamacare, cut the deficit, reform taxes, cut spending, unleash AMerican energy, etc.

    Ron Paul has spent 20 years in Congress and accomplished …. approximately nothing. There is no track record that indicates he will actually make a difference if elected to a different office, because he rarely makes a difference NOW. Supporting him is supporting talk over substance.

  • JSobieski

    Too many people on our side point to an issue or two and conclude “X isn’t conservative”.

    There is a lot of inconsistency re: TARP, budget-related stands, taxes, immigration, etc.

    For example, the fixation of people who are tough on immigration to equate in state tuition with amnesty is just silly. Similarly (but not as outrageous) is the failure to distinguish what Newt has meant by a “mandate” and an actual requirement to purchase insurance.

    Collectively speaking, individuals tend to overreact to a specific subset of political stimuli. In the aggregate, this leads to a lot anger, resentment, confusion, and circular firing squads on our side.

    Ever candidate has negatives on their record. Our inability to both admit the strengths AND the weaknesses of our candidates makes us ineffective as a party.

    Beyond the universe of GOP activists, the problem of is just that much worse.

    We have polls were everybody wants to cut spending and nobody wants to touch entitlements. The public is nuts, particularly in California.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    It’s amazing how Ron Paul-ites attacked Rick Perry viciously going back to the summer. Then they went after other candidates, Bachmann, Cain, etc. They’ve been on a Jihad against Newt and Santorum, and ran anti-Newt ads in Iowa.

    Ron Paul, though, NEVER went after Romney in any serious way, but ALWAYS went after the ‘not-Romney’ of the month …. almost as if the Establishment needed him as a ‘safety valve’ to keep the anti-Establishment folks at bay.

    I wrote of this effect in a prior diary… Ron Paul has split the conservative vote and hastened the conservative crack-up:

    http://www.redstate.com/wosg/2012/01/04/the-conservative-crack-up-and-iowas-choice/

    http://www.redstate.com/wosg/2012/01/10/romney-wins-reagan-coalition-loses/

    Ron Paul falsely claims the mantle of conservative than accuses others of being non-conservative for the crime of comprimising as they get legislation done. Ron Paul the purist never compromises – because he never got a darn thing done! We need to understand that Ron Paul is a do-nothing legislator who is harming conservative causes:

    http://www.redstate.com/wosg/2012/01/17/ron-paul-is-a-do-nothing-flip-flopper/

  • rifemadson

    always carry on about how they want limited government, less spending, constitutional principles. We have a candidate who offers all of that and he is dismissed as a kook because he does not think we should be the world’s police. He would cut a trillion dollars his first year and balance the budget in 3.

    We borrow money from China to put our troops in Australia for the purpose of being a deterrent to China. Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Kind of like giving billions to Musharraf, a military dictator, while fighting a war to bring democracy to Iraq. Why are we giving foreign aid to any country when we are 14 trillion dollars in debt?Yeah Ron Paul is the crazy one and his supporters are ignorant asses.

    I will hold my nose and vote for Romney or Gingrich but no, I would not vote for Santorum under any circumstances. I would either go 3rd party or leave it blank. A man’s gotta have a code.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    “public education”. And, you’re both right. They have no clue of history or if they do know a fact or two they have no concept of the context. Top that off with complete ignorance about the proper construction of an argument and you’ve got where we’re at.

  • rifemadson

    if you put debate performance as the sole criteria. Romney is the best bet for general electability. Ron Paul is the choice for actually changing the way our government works.

    Santorum is the one if you prefer a fundamentalist Christian theocracy.

    It in a nutshell.

  • rifemadson

    3 of a kind. It is a devestating attack on Romney.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Paul has been in Congress on and off for 30 years and hasn’t had a single piece of signature legislation introduced, let alone passed. He’s not been able to make one ally on any issue. And he’s the king of hypocrisy with his earmarks.

    He couldn’t get a bill through Congress if his life depended on it and they’d have veto proof majorities on anything that came up.

    Simply delusional.

  • conservativeparrothead

    Obviously its huge because its 100+ delegates I think and Newt lives there, would be nice to have been a factor, but other than that, Newt I think is on every other ballot, cant say the same for Santorum.

    I know there was some news about Missouri, but they have two contests, one beauty and one that really hands out delegates, the one with the delegates he is on, the one prior he is not.

    I just question their ground game in many of the upcoming caucus states.

  • WillWong

    Assuming that Paul is not a threat then. Is it a winner take all?

  • WillWong

    Assuming that Paul is not a threat then. Is it a winner take all?

  • Common_Cents

    boring, uninspiring, flat, phony. Not gonna get it done this time around.

  • rifemadson

    Where do you get your information?

    When you try to dismiss someone as delusional perhaps you should come with a point that can’t be debunked by a simple google search. There is an entire wikipedia page on legislation authored by Ron Paul.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislation_sponsored_by_Ron_Paul

    Pathetic attempt. I am a long time Red State reader but new to the comments section. Is this the kind of standard I should expect to see here?

  • JSobieski

    Difference between causation and correlation

    The concept of subsets: A can imply B without B implying A

    A shift in the demand (or supply) curve vs. moving along the demand (or supply curve)

    Dynamic systems (hello global warming cultists, and forget about even thinking about supply side economics)

    The historical frequency of “good intentions” leading to bad outcomes

    Practical problems of administerability (this is a big problem at elite law schools like Harvard)

  • aj_0000

    I assume there will be a write-in line. If so, I will write in Newt. If not, I’m voting for Ron Paul, absolutely.

  • rifemadson

    Cutting off funding for the UN
    Ending student visas from countries that sponsor terrorism
    Ending birthright citizenship
    allowing airline pilots to carry firearms
    eliminating the income tax
    eliminating federal obstacles to offshore drilling
    abolish the federal reserve
    repealing the school gun free zone act
    repealing the regulation of firearms in national parks

    Sounds like a loony extremist to me.

  • aj_0000

    Particularly in caucuses. He could be especially strong in NV. Vegas loves libertarians.

  • http://www.gmsplace.com/ civil truth

    Multiple google references

  • aj_0000

    There will be extremely low turnout, and Ron Paul may have his biggest win of the year.

  • rifemadson

    This is not 2008. Ron Paul has much wider and deeper support than he had back then.

    I opposed him then, and parroted the same neoconservative faux news talking points against him. I concede the point that some of his supporters are a bit off. This group also happens to be some of his most active internet supporters.

    However, Ron Paul and the liberty movement has grown exponentially since then. There are a whole lot of former mainstream conservatives like myself who are ready for a real change in government. We are tired of RINOs and the neoconservative wing of the GOP controlling the party. You will need us in the general election if you want to defeat Obama. Dismissing someone who supports his ideas of limited government and constitutional principals as “Paultards” is not going to serve you well.

    Believe it or not, people can disagree with the neoconservative version of US Foreign Policy without being retarded. Let’s elevate the discourse please.

  • rifemadson

    He blew up his own campaign by his pathetic debate performances and his ridiculous speeches and public statements.

    You can’t win the nomination when you become a punchline and start making W look like the articulate governor from Texas.

    Making the video about gays in the military while wearing the Brokeback mountain jacket? lmao it was like satire.

  • http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

    not at all. I am pulling for Newt, but only cause I’m convinced we are done no matter what. We may get Newt, then lose everything else, and ever four years, Goldwater will ne the term, except the word will be Newt. the establishment would rub this in over and over again.

    I hope I’m wrong, I hope Newt can show restraint, and less hubris. I hope we will not suffer this folly. Romney is just to bad, too liberal, and to establishment. My God, if Newt can pull this off, I pray he uses this as a lesson to teach the world. Paul did, and we have our faith to attest this, but I’m not going to act like this is not a huge risk, because it is.

  • Christine (Trelaina)

    but I believe “sponsored” and “introduced” are very different terms when it comes to Congress.

    Paul may have attached his name to someone else’s bill, but has he introduced one of his own?

  • snowshooze

    I know, I have been asking for something for a couple weeks.
    I got nothing yet.
    Everyone has something that is great about them. Or they are really good at something.
    What Mitt got???
    Still nothing???

  • davesinsanantonio

    Romney’s 75% disapproval is baked into a brick!

    Obummer’s disapproval is also a brick, and it is growing with his marxist inspired decisions like cancelling the pipeline.

    And, being a cake, Newt’s can be cut apart and broken down with time. And, it will be. Because at the end of the day Obummer will still be Obummer, and America is ready for a change.

  • davesinsanantonio

    have any chance for her own national race.

  • davesinsanantonio

    held next week instead, how do you think Newt would have fared?

    I am betting Newt would do far better, because he would look like a winner after he had already won. Before South Carolina, he still didn’t “look like a winner”, because he hadn’t won yet.

    Now, he will do much better in Florida than was predicted just one week ago, and if he wins Florida the story will probably be about how inevitable his nomination is. “Nothing succeeds like success”!

  • davesinsanantonio

    learning the wrong lessons from history.

  • davesinsanantonio

    they don’t want to “get it”. They want US to “get it” (that they know better than us). And, since they believe that to their core, they will never get anything we are trying to say to then, because they will never listen to us. We shout “NO!”, and they hear “YES!”, because they are deaf to what we say, and always will be, and they hear only what they want to hear. In that, they are no different from Obummer, Dingy Harry, Queen Nancy, or any of the rest of the elite statists who just KNOW they are better than we, and so are entitled to rule over the masses.

  • davesinsanantonio

    So, everyone who isn’t a Romneybot in Virginia go and vote for Ron Paul in the GOP primary!!! I will pass it on to my daughters who live there!

    Don’t you just love the fun of politics???!!!

  • politicalqrm

    As a matter of fact, the state has had such an influx of people from Mass, NJ and NY over the past 25 yrs that it has changed the demos.These voters tend to be more moderate. Interesting that these people leave the states that are liberal and high taxed and they continue to vote the same way up here. Go figure.

    The native New Hampshire person is more conservative, but they are a dying breed. Some of us that have relocated are conservative, but we are not as plentiful.

    The State GOP is moderate, which doesn’t help the cause of conservatism.

    Conservatives are here, but moderates out-number us.

  • rifemadson

    you are apparently lazy too. Simply fact checking my source on the wikipedia page would have given you the following statement from the 1st paragraph:

    “Except where indicated, all named bills below were originally authored and sponsored by Paul.”

  • bob570

    I’ve been watching the Republican “Moderates” since the days of Nixon, who by the way was a Moderate. By the 70′s I got so fed up with the losers I dropped out of the Republican Party all together. Then came Ronald Reagan, and then I saw for the first what a true conservative really was. After him the only true Conservative I’ve seen in Washington was Newt.

  • BA Cyclone

    whether such college grads fail to understand such things, or whether they are merely lacking in enough courage to consider who that man behind the curtain really is.

    Good intentions leading to bad outcomes…shall it ever be that any of the bad outcomes ever get judged against these good intentions…possibly even showing a correlation?

    The Road to Serfdom, indeed.

  • BA Cyclone

    whether such college grads fail to understand such things, or whether they are merely lacking in enough courage to consider who that man behind the curtain really is.

    Good intentions leading to bad outcomes…shall it ever be that any of the bad outcomes ever get judged against these good intentions…possibly even showing a correlation?

    The Road to Serfdom, indeed.

  • paco12348

    I am not at war against Romney but am at war against our Big Headed GOPS telling us how to vote and whom to vote for. Off with their heads I say! We, the people, will choose our own candidate and we want one that will lop off the Head of the Snake in the White House and ALL the Heads of the slobbering Media that lies to us. All of them treat the working people of the US as ignorant peons, capable only to work and pay taxes. I mute the TV every time Carl Rove opens his mouth. He was selling Romney as the only one capable of winning against Obama before the race really began. How’s it working for him?
    They better get behind Newt became he’s our pick. We believe Newt can mop the floor with Obama, but that’s not the only reason, so the big Headed GOPS need to understand that and factor it in. Newt sees the problems with the Activist Judges; the Socialist Educational Program indoctrinating the Children of America; the co-opting of the Media by the Radical Left; the Socialists in the Government; and this is in addition to the Obama programs killing our economy and enslaving our people. He knows we need term limits and a balanced budget.
    Yes, he has baggage but warts and all will not keep us from voting him in. We want a no-holds barred fighter against Obama who is one of the dirtiest politicans of all times. Nothing is beneath him. His ego is so massive he will do anything to keep from being a one term President.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    well

  • rifemadson

    right out of the liberal playbook. Disagree with someone and can’t beat them with facts? Yell racist and call them names.

    Your conservative credentials are suspect.

  • gfisher00

    We are transitioning from a time when the U.S. economy was larger than the rest of the the world combined and U.S. middle class were the wealthy ?one percenters? of the world, to a time where the jobs of the U.S. middle class are being siphoned off to other countries where labor is cheaper, increasingly leaving the U.S. middle class either unemployed or fighting to keep a job where there is constant downward pressure on wages due to foreign competition. The inevitable outcome of a country of 300 million people with average workers earning $30 or so per hour competing with a country of 1.2 billion with average workers earning $3 per hour, is that U.S. wages go down a lot, and Chinese wages come up a little, until they meet somewhere probably around $10 per hour. Now for certain, the U.S. has stalled the inevitable, by continuing to create high tech jobs that pay well, to a certain extent, but can the U.S. maintain its position based solely on better technology forever? Probably not. Eventually the U.S. will compete again, but the U.S. middle class will now be part of the world?s 99 percent.

    The plan of the Democrats to provide a safety net for the increasing numbers of displaced workers in the U.S. cannot be sustained, as eventually there will be too many for the system to handle (some would say we have already passed that point now, since the only way to continue to provide the benefits now is to borrow the money from China). The Republicans talk of creating jobs, which sounds great, but how do you do that when the impediment to creating jobs isn?t just government taxes and regulation, but cheap foreign labor? And I am not saying cutting trade is the answer, as that would raise prices on American consumers.

    Is the decline of the American middle class inevitable? Or is there a solution? This is what I?d like to hear candidates address.

  • rifemadson

    and give Obama a 2nd term.

  • http://www.houston-pos.net geotex

    Newt’s largest problem is going to be getting Republican voters in traditionally blue states to support him. California, New York, Illinois, just to name 3, have a large block of delegates to the Republican Convention, However, when the general election comes around, they have almost zero input, as the potential for these states to swing red is virtually non-existent without a huge, huge Democrat revolt against Obama. (And, in the case of Illinois stopping the Chicago/Cook County grave yard vote)

    Results being that while we have a great advantage and potential to take back the Executive branch from the Democrats, we may not have the potential to do it with the candidate that will have the largest impact on the future success of our Country.

    My experience in that past has been that these blue state republican voters are more apt to be middle of the road or moderate, therefor more likely to support the Massachusetts Moderate. So, odds are the Republican Party will be stuck with a candidate that could not beat McCain, and who is so out of touch with reality that he only has ever won one election to public office while burdening Massachusetts with an untold future burden of debt as a result of his Romney Care.

    I hope Newt can raise the funds to compete against “Mittens” in the blue states, that will do as much to shape the future of the Republican Party as well as our Country.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    ,

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    ~no~text~

  • iitywybad

    It’s you who is laughable and a hypocrit. You post trying to convince us that you are some sort of conservative when you’re more likely at best a squishy moderate and at worst a liberal/democrat/socialist/communist. That is evidenced by the fact that you can’t get past the first sentence of your second paragraph without resorting to the well know fact that when liberals can’t win on the merits of their arguments, they resort to name calling. If you left out the name calling, your post would not be more than two or three sentences, not the long diatribe that you submitted. I suspect you’re a liberal democrat and would be throwing bombs at whomever the current leading Republican nominee is because you know that either of the four remaining will be a better President than Barack Hussein Obama. However, I suggest you go ahead and vote for Obama and you won’t have a car for Newt or anyone else to wash!!

    Your post shows you to be a nasty, mean spirited, liberal idealogue. You would do well to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln when he said

    ?Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.?

  • arthurmanger17

    A voice defending the constitution is Newt’s strength. Romney is more of the same blah blah that we get form the ruling class. Romney care says all you need to know.
    This is a excerpt from an interview with Peter Robinson and Larry P. Arnn President of Hillsdale college
    LPA: ?Two points. The first is that we should not blame the Constitution. It is the longest surviving and greatest constitution in human history, and the effort by Progressives to overturn it is now more than 100 years old. It is not a failure of the Constitution, but the success of the political rebellion against it?which has been systematic and going on for a very long time?that brings us to where we are today.?
    Later in an answer he says this;
    ?I believe there is an abiding or overarching sense of fairness that touches a majority of the American people. If there is, constitutionalism will look more attractive than it used to look. I think that if Americans are provided a good and clear explanation of the choices before them, they will be willing to begin moving back toward constitutional government.?
    For those who care you can read the whole interview here
    http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2011&month=12

  • superrooter

    Obviously, you have been a poor leader for your own family and a not so shiny example for your children (if you have any). I take issue with you calling us Southerners “dumb”,”racist rednecks”. Also, you must have the perfect family in which no one gets divorced, has affairs or does anything wrong on their own road of life. Please feel free to share the “secret family recipe with us all” cause God knows with Romnibots out here on the internet like you, you definitely are going to get a democrat (B O) re-elected by running as a moderate republican. John McCain is a moderate republican. He had all the money in the world behind him and it didn’t help him get elected. So, you go ahead and vote for someone else (B O) in the general, if you don’t get your way now in the Primary. The American people have grown tired of your kind and we will have no choice but too leave you in our dust. Besides, the definition of a moderate republican = conservative democrat. Consider yourself outed DANRAM

  • notpropagandized

    So well said. The Establishment Republicans fear losing their power to others, outsiders. They fear it even more than losing their power to Establishment Democrats, despite the latter’s clear embracing of tyrannical socialism.

    The not-Romney vote is soooo stubborn. But he got into the high 20′s this time. He’s creeping up, nudging that ceiling, eh?

  • likeaglove

    I agree. Newt couldn’t even manage his campaign well enough to get on the Virginia ballot. Folks really think he can manage the entire country?

    Romney’s not a great candidate, but Newt is a disaster waiting to happen. I feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode in which black is white and pettiness and disorganization is celebrated.

  • uselogic

    THAT happened.

  • edintexas

    I think he means those Senate races where the Republican Party didn’t bother to support the Conservative candidates, preferring to pour millions of dollars into a moderate losing (and who lost) her race in California. $10 million IIRC in last minute buys which could have made a difference in several other races – including those he cites.

    Maybe he should be reminded that Newt opposed the Republican nominee in Delaware too.

  • edintexas

    Of those remaining, I don’t see Rick Santorum having any shot at the nomination. Nor will Ron Paul have any possibility of gaining the nomination. Since we are currently limited to those who remain in the race, Newt is preferable to Romney. He isn’t Conservative, but he is conservative when compared to Romney. We’ll just need to sit on Newt to keep him “conservative”, OTOH, I don’t see Romney ever being persuaded to back conservative ideas and policies, much less Conservative ones.

    Just my $0.04 (soon to be $0.08 – currency devaluation you know).

    Ed

  • edintexas

    As a people, US citizens haven’t a clue about history – period. There certainly are those who are well aware of historical events and persons, but they are the exceptions who prove the rule.

    Ed

  • edintexas

    Romney and conservative principles. Didn’t know he had any firm and long held conservative principles. Not only does he need to learn how to explain and defend them, he needs to find them first.

    And if you think Romneycare isn’t a blunder, you obviously aren’t a Conservative.

  • edintexas

    Everyone dumping on the Democrat comes after the Primaries. Concentrating on Dear Leader, who richly deserves every iota of disdain we can find, will not help Republicans choose a nominee. It would help the MSM and Democrats choose the Republican nominee.

  • http://www.democratsforsale.blogspot.com soonermom

    You want a mess in Government, elect Gingrich and just forget all his baggage and the fact he could not get along with conservatives in the House preferring to deal with Democrats. Same Newt who went around the Country with Pelosi and Daschle and became very friendly with Hillary on healthcare. The stories of Gingrich freezing out conservatives in the House and opening his door to democrats comes from a lot of people who served with him.

    The man carried on a six-year affair while Speaker with a Congressional aide and yet laid into Clinton on his women? Give me break.

    Have conservatives lost their values and are willing to listen to a sound bite as someone they should choose. Newt gets mad at the media and the SC voters go gaga. No matter that the question may have been right or wrong, you are not allowed to ask questions of some of our thin skinned candidates that might give us some insight into their thinking. The fact he carried on an affair while Speaker is off the books. All is forgiving even though he was forced to resign as Speaker.

    Isn’t that wonderful to have a candidate for President who was forced to resign as Speaker.

    Why am I a Republican when this is the best we can do? Newt sounds more like a Democrat running. Both parties are in a sad state of affairs — they say money corrupts and they are right as we are seeing way too much money in this race resulting in four candidates I would have a hard time supporting in the fall. Two I won’t support — Romney and Gingrich. Santorum I will vote for though not with anticipation to go to the polls.

  • stardustsara

    who is this? ” Put another way, the current Republican leadership fears that the man who helped the GOP take back the House for the first time in 40 years and his allies in the tea party who helped take back the House in 2010 will cause the GOP to now lose”.

    i live in florida and i know about 30 conservatives making well under $200,000 who are voting for romney. gingrich scares the crap out of us.

  • littletboca

    Erick is right as usual on his political evaluation – the old Republican establishment fear for their jobs and the DEMS really wanted Romney because they are sure they would beat him.

    Newt’s baggage as everyone keeps referring to it is extremely minor compared to his success. The first time in 40 years that the Republicans had a majority in the House. Getting Bill Clinton to work with him was absolutely amazing, but Clinton knew and still knows that Newt was the answer to a balanced budget with a surplus, smaller Government etc..

  • romansdaughter

    I miss her, what happened? Is she okay?

  • bzip

    Bzip is here and only checks in once in a while. After Erick?s (and many other so called conservative commentators) back stabbing of Rick Perry ? I don?t really have much interest anymore. I don?t watch the debates; I don?t follow the election anymore. It is worthless to me.

    We have a flip-flopping moderate Romney coupled to a big gov?t baggage carrying lobbyist Newt along with a big gov?t social carrying conservative ? all three of which are a disgusting example of what this country has become.

    People had a chance at a small gov?t conservative candidate; they turn their back on him and if that wasn?t bad enough they had to stab him in the back just to get their guy Newt over the line.

    The obsession with the not-Romney crowd has gotten so bad that they throw the real conservative under the bus for a big gov?t guy who would lose in a landslide in the general election.

    You better watch out Erick ? continue with your obsession with the Anti-Romney and Ron Paul might just sneak into the nomination. No matter how you look at it, anyone looking for a true small gov?t conservative candidate is out of luck entirely.

    If this is what the Tea Party and Conservatives stand for ? I don?t want anything to do with it, it is disgusting and disgraceful.

    In the meantime, once again we will get what we deserve.

  • lizzie

    I am still in the grief stage, and still wander here.

    but, last night, I started worrying about nancys. She rarely came to RedState, but was everywhere else on the web in comment threads, and the sole Perry supporter with signs in New Hampshire, and I really am worried about her.

    last night was very bad for me – I was so angry at the juvenile Perry-bashing that is still going on that I had to send a message to the current editor of The New Yorker who has turned what used to be an iconoclastic standard for non-partisan journalism into yet another adolescent snarky member of the Obama choir since the Obama campaign banned them after Ryan Lizza’s expose of Obama as slick Chicago pol in July 2008.

    I just hate the teenage snark that accompanies so much of the minority who are the Obama choir. and have not been able to read The New Yorker for months. Used to be my favorite day of the week, just to see what they were writing about, usually not political. very eclectic.

    sorry for the digression.

    nancys and I (as K2K) used to be the only Perry defenders at some news sites.
    but she never knew how much I admired her courage, and appreciated her comments here with those URLs to terrific Perry songs by Ms. Rebecca Hanna-Winterowd.

    I know nancys will not see this, but hope she is recovering better than I am.

    I can not face a Romney v Obama election.

  • jakeofalltrades

    I’m more worried about getting rid of Liar-in-Thief at this point.

  • hls87

    We get the government our neighbors deserve. Unfortunately, what they deserve is more of the poison that’s been killing us since Wilson took office in 1913. They don’t care that our society is demonstrably on its deathbed; they’re going back for another fix of progressive big government. It doesn’t matter that some of us want and deserve something better. We’re going over the falls with everyone else.

  • carolynr

    If I could have a wish…it would be this. Now that Perry is feeling better and his debates had gotten better…bring him back. But…let’s look at reality…The insiders will not let him back, the MSM will not let him back and the NE USA doesn’t like him. That is factual. He can’t win WA, OR, CA or the NE USA. Why..look at the laws that are in place and who passed them. Do you think they want morality bank in their country….H*ll No.

    If you have been on the major blogs…you have read my blogs. If you were on Sioux City paper…I was there. Union Leader…I was there. DesMoines Register…I was there. As far as the major papers…I am on all of them.

    I pulled and argued for Perry as much as I could. How can you tell an evangelical that his support of Santorum was due to his ethanol subsidy. Besides, the MSM was murdering Perry and VanderPlatts and company wanted to be seen on the winning side.

    Union Leader…I don’t think there are too many really nice people that post on that…but being on WaPo for years got me use to that.
    They were like parrots…iterating the talking points of Romney.

    Know what Lizzie…I think Romney…NOT OBAMA was behind most of the dirt (the rock in Texas)…not Obama. If he believes in God…he sure has a bad way of showing it…because he breaks the Golden Rule every time he can.

    They’ll be back…the blogs are lonely places for Conservatives, especially those who backed Perry.

  • conservativepopulist

    Thank you for those entirely correct facts. The electerate was looking for someone from outside Washington. Only Obama, fit the bill.

  • conservativepopulist

    Electorate, even

  • romansdaughter

    Yep, I posted somewhere on another thread that Erick was going to regret pushing Perry out so that Newt could win in SC and sure enough he just wrote an article basically saying that neither Newt nor Mitt can beat Obama so what are we going to do? People have lost their minds, There is Obama taking away more jobs from the American people and here we had a pro jobs with a jobs record running and the conservatives with their platforms blew it. I am disgusted too and I think we have just made it possible now for Obama to have 4 more years. So I know exactly how you feel.

  • Christine (Trelaina)

    Since when did Wikipedia become a reliable source?

    Even if true, I simply made a statement, which I would have made regardless of my choice to read what some Paulite decided to post on Wikipedia. Your reaction is quite telling.

    Interesting that the Wikipedia site does not detail the results of each of these wonderful bills:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ron-pauls-house-record-stands-out-for-its-futility-and-tenacity/2011/12/23/gIQA5ioVJP_story.html

    “Of the 620 measures that Paul has sponsored, just four have made it to a vote on the House floor. Only that one has been signed into law.”

  • lizzie

    yes, jakeofallt – I do believe Newt will get the nomination, not least because most of Perry’s ground troops and bundlers seem to be pivoting because they trust Perry.

    bzip – yeah, I empathize, but I watched the debate just to see how Romney and Paul are going to get knocked out.

    I keep thinking about Perry’s words – tactical retreat – one never knows what can happen in 2012, but I got really upset very early this morning when I read yet another juvenile snark attack on Rick Perry’s gaffes, right after I read: “Perry was right on Turkey and Islamic terror” By NITSANA DARSHAN-LEITNER The Jerusalem Post.
    01/23/2012 22:42
    http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=254852

    I sometimes follow media echo on specific stories, like the Mosque at Ground Zero in 2010, which, btw, was finally stopped by the most under-reported aspect, Con Edison’s ownership of the actual property.

    But, I have never followed a story where the entire USA media from right to left SO misrepresented anyone like what Rick Perry wentthrough. ABC’s Arlette Saenz and even the Texas Tribune in the NYT were about as fair as one would want in real journalism, but the rest of the media went bonkers.

    I do belive Romney secretly owns the WaPo :)

    But, it was the Paulbots who really did him in – who else could have created that bash-edit of his Oct 28 NH Cornerstone speech so fast? When I saw it, I knew it was an odd edit but I saw him mimicking Ron Paul “Gold is Good”, so I followed that very closely. And, it was looking at Ron Paul’s five-fingered claw that made Perry turn into stone, and thus oops.

    because Rick Perry helped stop the 2011 Gaza flotilla, and Ron Paul gets money from the Free Gaza far left – Hollywood money. Same words used to attack Perry that I get attacked with since 2008.

    I had a really bad night, so sorry for stumbling.

    Y’all are wrong – Perry could have won New York. I saw him on NY1 and I know why half of NY voters sit home in despair. He could move and win Mayor of NYC in 2013 if he wanted. We could use his help, his amazing resilience, big heart, and, yes, intelligence.

    I will never understand why his campaign was done the way it was, but Rick Perry must be the most dangerous man in politics to have the entire media discredit him for telling the truth, and not just about Turkey.

    How’s this for the real picture of Romney, the alleged Free Market Capitalist:
    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/rich-really-are-different_617667.html?nopager=1

    you know carolynr, Bryan Preston faced the same problem at PJM, by supporting Perry, but Bryan never stabbed him in the back.

    well, time to find some good guys shooting bad guys instead of SOTU.

    I still hope nancysabet is ok.

  • Scope

    into the campaign staff. When I read that Perry has hired Joe Allbaugh, the former campaign chief for Bush, I was astounded. Now I am also reading that Allbaugh brought with him the Bush Washington insiders. If the stories I am reading are true, Allbaugh more than destroyed the Perry campaign. I understand Allbaugh worked side by side with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes on the Bush campaigns. I’ve read that Allbaugh parted ways with Rove and Hughes in supporting Perry in his last Gov. race, but how far did his loyalty really go, and those that he brought along with him.

    When the Politico story broke about the campaign infighting, and Perry asked those questioning him, give me a name, he probably already knew the name. That was just a few days before the Iowa caucuses if I am not mistaken. Perry was more than let down by those he unfortunately trusted. We are now reading about the total and complete takeover of the Perry campaign by Allbaugh, to the point that he wouldn’t even allow any private conversations between the staffers, if that’s true. The long time loyal Perry staff was taken over by what sounds like a bully. Perry should never ever have trusted anyone even remotely close to, or with any connection to Karl Rove any where near his campaign. Karl Rove was out for vindictive blood.

  • Locke

    2. Romneycare wasn’t and isn’t a blunder, it was deliberate and premeditated, as was the refusal to disavow it. But that has been pretty thoroughly thrashed out by now, amd it doesn’t look as if the primary voters find it disqualifying – which is a large part of the reason I think Romney may have the easier task.

    I hope you aren’t one of those who threaten to stay home if your man is not nominated. Personally, I would vote for Jeffrey Dahmer against Obama, not to mention any of those who have run or been urged to run.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    The poll numbers that is. They are showing Newt does have an electability gap.

  • acat

    They’re only marginally more useful now than they were before Iowa.

    They’ll start being useful in August.

    Until then, you’re wasting your time.

    Mew

  • acat

    I don’t think it’s going to be an easy sell.

    Mew

  • acat

    would have fared better in 2008, because unlike McCain, he would have known how to handle a dirty tricks squad.

    After all, he has one.

    Oh, and he’s got a rep as a green-eye-shade kind of a guy, so would have had a clue what to do with TARP and the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies.

    Mew