Dammit Jim!

On the eve of the GOP Presidential Debate from Greenville, SC the Intertoobs are ablaze with the sad, sad news that former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore announced he was dropping out of the presidential race.

His hasty decision forced me to update my blog banner to include him with the rest of the also-rans.  Dammit Jim!  You're always making me do extra work!

The jokey hashtag #Gilmentum was a metaphor for his dismal showing in Iowa where he managed a pitiful 12 votes and effused a veritable landslide in New Hampshire.  After all the votes were counted, his total was 133 out of 285,000 votes cast.

Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee both collected more votes than Gilmore even though they dropped out of the race days before New Hampshirites went to the polls.

Gilmore participated in two “undercard” debates, but never graduated to the main stage. He saw the writing on the wall when he was the only remaining Republican candidate to be excluded from Saturday's debate.

The unlikeliest of the unlikely, Gilmore raised a paltry $90,000 for his presidential bid and loaned his campaign committee $124,000.

One story emanating from New Hampshire told of him wandering into a cigar bar in Manchester called Castro’s Back Room where he tried to chat up his candidacy while the patrons were watching the Super Bowl.  Twenty minutes later poor Jim walked out leaving the dozen or so people scratching their heads.  One guy said, “Ain’t that guy something?  He’s got no chance.  It’s like a kid who wants a sucker but his mom says ‘no’ 100 times and he still keeps asking.”

I remember (because I’m old) when Arnold Horshack, a “sweathog” from “Welcome Back Kotter” always jammed his arm into the air saying, “Oooh, Ooooh. Pick me.” He reminds me of Horshack.

Jim is heading back to his family who has never heard of him either.

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.