I know, I know, no executive experience. But he’s way more in line with my ideology and exudes competence at pretty much every level.

That he made Clinton sympathetic and earned him a second term, failed to deliver any new seats in the ’98 election and got himself kicked OUT of his job as Speaker. Yeah man, Newt’s a regular Blood N Guts Patton.

At Gingrich’s true-blue conservatism that they felt they just had to kick him out. Pretty sure it had everything to do with his complete failure to lead.

Guys again, if this were a race between Romney and someone like Perry and the screed was “Perry’s too conservative, we need to vote Romney,” I’d be lining up with you and saying that’s ridiculous and we don’t need to water down conservatism to win. That’s not our choice here.

As for the balanced budget and gasoline, now you’re just projecting things onto Gingrich. The balanced budget was a product of several things. One, the tech boom. Two, modest spending reductions coupled with welfare reform. And three… HIGHER TAXES. So now we’re trumpeting higher taxes because it balanced the budget? I’m pretty sure right now we’re all fighting against any and all tax increases and saying we can cut our way to a balanced budget.

Clinton was not dragged into welfare reform kicking and screaming. He triangulated the heck out of the situation and was all in favor of welfare reform after ’94. And he promised to “end welfare as we know it” in his ’92 campaign! Let’s not revise history here…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act

Gasoline prices had nothing whatsoever to do with Gingrich or Clinton or any public policy. It was the product of a thoroughly depressed energy market that lasted from the 1980s through the early 2000s. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut

DOMA was not controversial whatsoever and passed with a broad majority.

I’m not going to deny that Gingrich was tireless in his efforts with GOPAC and didn’t do some good for our party in its history. I’m saying he’s a gigantic risk with not a great reward. If we’re going to take a big swing, we should do it with a Daniels or Pawlenty or Perry or Jindal. You know, a conservative who can actually lead.

Oh, and as for Romney’s history, I concede that his track record in MA wasn’t great but he bankrolled a ton of Tea Party candidates in ’10. That’s worth something.

We prospered in the 1990s because we created an entirely new segment of the economy. It had nothing to do with governmental policy whatsoever.

Oh, and as I wrote above, we raised taxes in the 1990s. Sounds like a great blueprint for our present day situation.

I don’t think anyone denies that. But past actions are generally good indications of future behavior. I’m not attacking Gingrich on his personal life, though I do find it both hilarious and sad that we’re acting like Democrats here in giving all of this stuff a pass but hold Anthony Weiner’s feet to the fire.

I’m noting his past behavior in positions of leadership. He did a decent job in stirring up the hopes of our side that we could retake the House majority. He did good work for GOPAC. He followed through on votes for Contract With America legislation.

And then he destroyed the party’s image in the government shutdown showdown with Clinton. He got strung up on ethics charges. He lost the confidence of our caucus. And he eventually got run out of town.

Then after leaving ton he’s vacillated as much if not more than Romney on a host of issues including global warming and Social Security and Medicare. He advocated for the prescription drug plan, blasted NY-29 conservatives for not falling in line behind Scozzafava, lobbied for Freddie Mac, ripped Ryan for his bold plan and then turned around and scolded everybody in the GOP for not thinking big enough.

It’s just crazy to me that we want to accept all the negatives with Newt when there aren’t that many positives, except that he likes to throw the base red meat and rip up moderators. He satiates our desire for liberal blood and Romney doesn’t. No matter the fact that he’s far from an across the board conservative as long as he knows what buttons to push in a primary debate.

Lunacy. Just lunacy.

It’s tempting. I get it. And I’d be with you if the establishment hated Gingrich because they thought he was too conservative to win a la Reagan. But that’s not the case and you’re projecting here.

The establishment was scared of Perry because they thought he was too conservative to win the general. It’s scared of Gingrich because they think he’s got too much baggage and is way too unstable to win the general and in fact will get us all killed. And even if he doesn’t, they’re scared he’ll repeat his major errors and be a totally ineffective and unorganized president. But those are terribly long odds to begin with.

The Dems don’t really hate him any more than say, we hate Harry Reid. It’s not like Reid is a super effective majority leader but we still don’t like him anyway.

Is that he couldn’t get over his wife’s misgivings. I mean dude, she LEFT YOU for another guy, you took her back and then you roll over for her when she says don’t run for president? That’s weak, really weak.

But Pi Over Three has it right here. We were considering Cain? We’re really considering Newt now? It’s a circus clown and a bomb thrower that is just as likely to blow us up or Romney. It’s a terrible, terrible choice. But it’s not Romney’s fault that Perry was unprepared or Jindal, Daniels, Christie and Ryan all passed on a run. Or that GWB ruined the Bush name and prevented Jeb from getting in.