"Go Home, Newt, You're Drunk!"

I really wasn't going to comment on this, but I've seen a flurry of opinions about Newt's "slapdown" of Megyn Kelly, or how "hypocritical" she was to have, on at least one occasion, posed alluringly and then obsess over Trump's alleged sexual peccadilloes.

Give me a break! For the record, I have been a long time fan and defender of Newt. I admired his Contract with America, I defended him over the gross distortions of allegations against him supposedly handing his ex-wife divorce papers on her hospital sick bed, and I would have voted for him for president, if he'd had the fire in the belly required to capture the 2012 nomination. In that 2012 debate when he stood up to the media bias of the questioning, I cheered him for his backbone. His exchange with Megyn Kelly? Not so much.

In all the years I've followed his career, this moment was IMHO, his least dignified, most disappointing and most embarrassing moment. Newt has a reputation as a historian and a shrewd political strategist. Both true. He typically has the ability to calmly and rationally dissect whatever arguments are presented to him. This occasion... not so much.

The first four and a half minutes are a pretty benign back and forth, but around the 4:48 minute mark, things begin to get heated. Kelly is pressing Newt to admit, in the face of numerous polls, that his candidate may be slipping (alternate universes aside). The supposed slide timed to the allegations surrounding what he may or may not have said to a beauty queen (exacerbated by his dwelling on the story for days), and the crass remarks on the audio leaked from Access Hollywood.

MK: "If Trump is a sexual predator, that is..."

NG (interrupting): :He's not a sexual predator! You can't say that! You cannot defend that statement!"

MK (Crosstalk): "Okay, that's your opinion, I'm not taking a position on it."

Let's stop it there for a second.

Newt Gingrich for Vice President?

There's a rumor making the rounds that Newt Gingrich is not only on Donald Trump's short list of VPs, but that he is the favorite. He certainly has been making the rounds of the talking head programs talking up his buddy Trump. Trump could do a lot worse than Newtie. Of course, Newt comes with some baggage that might not set well with some women voters. So, let's take a look at some of the pros and cons of a Gingrich vice presidency.

On the plus side, Newt is really smart. He's formally educated. He's literate. He's the anti-Trump  in this regard. He was the architect and prime mover behind the Contract with America which gave control of the House of Representatives to Republicans, providing balance to the Clinton profligacy, forcing him to balance the national budget, implementing welfare reforms and any number of good things whose successes Bill Clinton took credit for.

Newt knows the ins and outs of getting things done in Washington. He will surely make mincemeat out of anyone the Democrats can dig up in a VP debate. And Newt is fully qualified to assume the Oval Office if, God forbid, something should ever happen to the president. In his presidential bid in 2012, after standing up against a biased media, there was a time when it looked like Newt might take the lead, but it was short lived.* Newt would have been, IMHO, a better candidate than Mitt.

Now the negatives. Newt is not the best liked of politicians. I mentioned a week or so back that a friend of mine from high school demonstrated a visceral hatred of Newt at the mere mention of his name. She repeated the liberal narrative, that Newt had callously handed his first wife her divorce papers while she was laying a hospital bed, racked with disease. And while I don't believe the narrative is true, nonetheless, I doubt her disgust of Newt has moderated any over the years.

Then, there's the question of trade agreements. Newt mentioned just this week that he was the whip that drove NAFTA through the House. Last I heard, NAFTA was still anathema to union guys on the Left. Supposedly there are Bernie voters who talk about gravitating to Trump should Hillary prevail as the Democrat candidate. Now imagine them being asked to hold their nose and vote for a ticket with the father of NAFTA on it? That could prove problematic.

Newt is a brilliant man but he has image problems. Even though in an ideal world that shouldn't matter, in the United States of Kardashia, JFK trumps a Nixon, Reagan trumps Carter and those guys from Air Force One and Independence Day inspire confidence with their square jawed manliness. Newt looks like the kid who gets his lunch money taken away from him.

Will a ticket of two, old white men prevail over the first woman president and a designated minion to be chosen later? Ya pays your money, ya takes your chances!

*Newt and his wife Callista flew off for a vacation in Hawaii in the wake of a very successful debate, reminiscent of Evelle Younger, who, after debating Jerry Brown during his first California gubernatorial re-election bid, flew off to Hawaii with his wife, while Gov. Moonbeam stayed behind, and took to the airwaves of Sacramento radio stations to lie and misrepresent what Younger had said the night before. Both the Gingrichs and the Youngers came back sun-kissed and kissing their elections goodbye.

Politically Brilliant. Unorthodox. Audacious.

Given up for dead after disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gingrich like Lazarus, arose from the dead after strong debate performances in Myrtle Beach and Charleston, SC.

Voters in the Palmetto State were fed up with the Republican Establishment’s desperate attempts to force Mitt Romney down their throats. 

Like a child reciting his multiplication tables, Romney tosses off catchphrases by rote like, "I love this land, I love its Constitution, I revere its founders, I will restore those principles, I will get America back to work, and I'll make sure that we remain the shining city on the hill."

 

In his victory speech last night, Gingrich said, “It’s not that I am a great debater, it’s that I articulate the deepest-held values of the American people.”

Voters in South Carolina and elsewhere hunger for actionable substance, not empty sound bites.

Winston Churchill once admitted, "The Conservatives have never liked nor trusted me." The same thing can be said of Gingrich, who has had a tortured relationship with the GOP's conservative wing, to say the least.

Investors Business Daily offers this analogy from Gingrich Looking Churchillian In Political Comeback:   “Once the brash, even obnoxious Young Turk in Congress, Gingrich is today wiser and more experienced. He has seen what works in public policy and what doesn't.”

“With the nonstop media coverage of his failed marriages, people might just forget Gingrich's solid record of accomplishment. He co-authored the; 'Contract With America,’ and is probably the man most singly responsible for the GOP's taking control of Congress in 1994 for the first time in four decades.”

“As House speaker, he oversaw the passage of welfare reform, a capital-gains tax cut that helped propel the Internet boom, and, in 1998, the first balanced budget since the 1960s.”

[SNIP]

“Gingrich knows the world's future lies with freedom, not with party masters controlling the destinies of billions of people. He's more likely to aggressively pursue the illogic and the inconsistencies in Obama's statements in a head-to-head debate—and to take on Obama's failure as a central element of his campaign.”

[SNIP]

“With a president in office who, if not an actual socialist seems awfully like one in the statist policies he promotes, America is headed toward inevitable decline and an end to its ancient freedoms—unless, that is, our course changes dramatically.”

In what became known as Mario Savio’s Sproul Hall Steps speech, he urged:

“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

Gingrich is pleading with us to take action.

“Where’s Mitt?”—The Fizzle In The Drizzle

Thunderstorms have been rolling around the Palmetto State for much of the day and the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch in 14 of 46 of South Carolina’s counties until 8PM—one hour after polls close.  Great weather if you’re a duck.

The kindly folks at MSDNC smugly referred to an event scheduled for 10:45AM today at Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville as the “Ham House Showdown”—so dubbed because Gingrich and Romney both scheduled appearances at the popular eatery.

Here’s what Alex Moe and Garrett Haake wrote:  

“The folks at Tommy's Country Ham House in Greenville are expecting a record crowd Saturday morning, and the mob's not coming for the grits.”

“In a state famous for its bizarre brand of Republican politics, mere hours after polls open in South Carolina, the primary's two frontrunners are hosting dueling campaign events at the restaurant over breakfast. Same time. Same place. Call it the Ham House Showdown.”

The anticipated food fight never materialized as Romney ducked the “showdown” showing up 45 minutes early; worked the crowd for about fifteen minutes and was gone by 10:31AM.  Ten minutes later Newt arrived asking, “Where’s Mitt?  I thought he was gonna stay and maybe we’d have a little debate this morning.”  He glad-handed the crowd for an hour.

Romney strained to be heard at Tommy’s because there was no microphone.  Newt got his “I paid for this microphone” moment because he had paid for it when the campaign set up the event.

At 7:00PM, when the polls officially closed, Fox News called the primary for Newt Gingrich, which again begs the question, “Where’s Mitt?”

Via a thread at Memeorandum.
Linked at Sentry Journal.  Thanks, John.

Little Wooden Boy Whose Nose Grew Longer Every Time He Told A Lie Visits Amusement Park While Nation Gets Taken For A Ride

On the day of the CNN-Southern Republican Presidential Debate, Newt Gingrich poked fun at the fella with those huge ears.

“But I have to confess, as I thought this morning about the President flanked on one side by Mickey Mouse, and on the other side by Goofy, resembling actually sort of a Cabinet picture of the Obama administration, I just felt better about the idea.”

Linked by Randy's Roundtable.  Thank you Randy-g.
UPDATE:  Linked by Right Wing News and The TrogloPundit.

Newt: The Palmetto Pugilist Scores A Knockout

I have kept my powder dry on the subject of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, until now.

Coming under fire recently for his attacks on Mitt Romney, Gingrich seemed, at least to me, that he was committing political suicide by first pledging to run a positive campaign and then pivoting when he became livid over the $3.5 million in attack ads run against him in Iowa by Romney’s SuperPAC.

Pundits have expressed their disdain for Gingrich’s retaliatory attacks on Romney’s history at Bain Capital.  The Left has been drooling over the fodder Newt handed them.  The Right contends it was tantamount to opposition research that benefits the current occupant of the White House.

It’s not hard to see either side’s point.  How it all affects the primaries and ultimately the general election is a discussion left for another day.

Monday’s GOP Republican Debate, held at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, was fiery and perhaps the best debate to date.

With the colossal failure Jon Huntsman out of the race, the remaining candidates had 90 seconds to respond to questions posed by the debate moderators.  This benefited the knowledgeable Newt Gingrich mightily.

At one point in the debate, moderator Juan Williams asked if he intended to “belittle the poor and racial minorities” with his words.

“Well first of all, Juan,” said Gingrich, “the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” The Convention Center erupted in cheers.

“Now I know among the politically correct you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable. Second, you’re the one who earlier raised a key point: The area that ought to be I-73 was called by Barack Obama a corridor of shame because of unemployment. Has it improved in three years?  No. They haven’t built a road, they haven’t helped the people, they haven’t done anything.”

“So here’s my point. I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness. And if that makes liberals unhappy, I am going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn some day to own the job.”

That response prompted the crowd to erupt again and even earned Gingrich a standing ovation, something Frank Luntz noted had never happened in the 16 years he’s covered presidential debates.  Luntz suggested that Gingrich’s performance will generate movement for the candidate in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

 

I know what you’re thinking right now.  Am I supporting Newt?  I’m not sure yet.  One thing is absolutely certain however—the man will eviscerate the errand boy sent by grocery clerks in a debate.

In November of last year while envisioning a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with the aforementioned errand boy, Gingrich asked, “How does a Columbia/Harvard graduate, who was the editor of the law review, supposedly the best orator in the Democratic Party, how does he look himself in the mirror and say he's afraid to debate a West Georgia College professor?"

Gingrich added, "The White House will be my scheduler. I will appear four hours after Obama everywhere he goes for the duration of the campaign, and I will answer each of his speeches."

Full Video Of Huntsman-Gingrich Debate From New Hampshire

The Lincoln-Douglas style debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH was serene—tranquil in fact.  The “debate” centered on foreign policy issues.

Viewers were struck by the vast knowledge both candidates possess on foreign affairs.  Their approaches were levelheaded—a far cry from those of Bachmann and Perry.

When the topic of Iran was raised, Gingrich and Huntsman both agreed that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran poses the most serious threat to the US in the next decade.

Gingrich warned, “I want all of you to think about how serious this is.  A movement which recruits its own children to learn how to be suicide bombers…to blow themselves up in order to kill you is a movement that, with nuclear weapons, would use them in a heartbeat because there’s no effective deterrent.  If you’re determined that they not have nuclear weapons, I believe you have to be ultimately for regime change, because there’s no practical scenario in which you can take out their weapons systems without them rebuilding them.”

The former Speaker of the House made the dire prediction that if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons that a second Holocaust would, almost certainly, be visited upon the people of Israel.

The “Newt Romney” Zingerfest

As I mentioned in a previous post, Saturday night’s GOP presidential debate was the first one I’ve been able to watch live because I wasn’t working.

ABC, the network that is finally canning hermaphrodite Christiane Amanpour, trotted out Diane Sawyer and little Georgie Stephanopoulos to be the moderators. 

"Who is the most conservative of you all?" asks little Georgie.  Mitt answers, "Speaker Gingrich and I have a lot of places where we disagree..."  “Why don't you name them?” asked Stephanopoulos.  "Er..." Romney said and then proffered Gingrich’s idea about building bases on the moon.

That set up one of the zingers of the night. Gingrich looked askance at Mittens and said, “Let's be candid, the only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994.”

The wise thing for Mittens to have done would have been to let that one-two punch go, but he didn’t.  “With regards to the idea that I had beaten Ted Kennedy I’d have been a career politician, that’s probably true.”  Can you say tailor-made line for a “not Romney ad”?

I was impressed with Michele Bachmann’s brilliant creation of the moniker “Newt Romney” implying that Newt backed the individual mandate in healthcare as far back as 1993. Romney tried to shut down that image by quickly adding, “I know Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich is a friend. He and I are not clones. This Newt Romney thing we've got to get it out of our minds.”

Besides the two zingers I’ve mentioned here, the part of the debate that will resonate for a long while was when Rick Perry throttled Mitt by saying, "I read your first book, and it said in there that your mandate in Massachusetts, which should be the model for the country ... I'm just saying, you were for individual mandates, my friend."

Romney brazenly erred when he shot back at Perry saying, “You’ve raised that before, Rick, and you’re simply wrong.  Rick, I’ll tell you what:  10,000 bucks?  $10,000 bet?”  That was the “oops” moment of the night.  That one’s gonna leave a mark.

There was a mini-debate about Gingrich’s comment that the Palestinians are an “invented” people which was Romney’s strongest exchange of the evening.

Larry Sabato tweeted, “So it’s obvious:  Newt wasn’t jostled from frontrunner’s perch tonight.  Only negative TV ads or Newt himself can reverse his course.”

That bit of news is sure to make some pundits apoplectic.

Via Iowa Caucuses
Linked by Sentry Journal.