Why Gingrich is Bad (and Romney is Awesome): A Politico Megathread Spectacular

[Filuwaúrdjan]

None of them have any values, other than a desire for power. They're all dead-eyed sociopaths who'd murder their own grandparents if it meant an easier path to the top.

Don't you think at least some of them have actually done so already?

I've always been especially suspicious of Gingrich (the 'ch' pronounced as in Welsh, German, Etc.) and Rhymney on that score.

[CJK]

attacking Newt Gingrich, a man who shut down the federal government ...

Yeah, that proved to be a real winner in 1996 when Clinton won re-election.

Why don't you quote the entire sentence instead of taking my words out of context?

I said

You must be logged in to read this quote.

At no point did I claim that Gingrich handled it well. I was commenting on the insane assertion that he is less reliable than Romney, who was running away from Reagan and embracing gay and abortion rights at roughly the same time Newt was aggressively confronting Bill Clinton.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What did you expect after the Bork fiasco? Souter was a necessary compromise. Kennedy would not have had it any other way in 1990. While the timing of his retirement is unforgivable, along with some of his votes, we cannot blame Bush 41 and Sununu for unforeseeable events...

yeah, I blame B41/Sununu for Souter...100% I do.

they could have went with a known entity like they did with Thomas  - both were nominated in 1990, with Souter being picked and confirmed first.

Nixon/Reagan/Bush wasted most of their SCOTUS appointments.  Bush43 is the ONLY one who passed the SCOTUS test.

While failing others, in some ways even more than his father. It's funny how the demand for perfectionism only pertains to one side of the political ledger.

[Politico]

Excerpts with the bold for personal emphasis (I was not aware of these facts about Gingrich)

Let me start with something important. I have two goals for 2012:

I want to prevent the European debt crisis from consuming America next.

I want to elect a president who will defend the ideas of constitutional conservatism and limited government.

I believe Romney’s candidacy is well-established. He’s a moderate, northeastern, don’t-rock-the-boat Republican, and I think everyone in the party clearly understands that.

But what worries me is that the voters are being sold a bill of goods in Gingrich.

Gingrich began his career as a Rockefeller Republican from the liberal wing of the party. And though he has often spoken and occasionally acted like he left that wing, it is clear from his flip-flops and multiple “apologies” that his heart is still there.

His record features “highlights” such as global warming commercials with Nancy Pelosi, support for cap-and-trade, funding Planned Parenthood, and, recently, announcing that life does not begin at conception.

Not only that, but Gingrich took money as a Freddie Mac lobbyist — one of the well-known government-backed agencies that served as a root cause of the financial meltdown of 2008.

While one candidate in the race, my father, Rep. Ron Paul, was publicly warning about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the crisis they were helping to create, Gingrich was earning millions to not only endorse but also promote the status quo.

One group of Gingrich’s also took in nearly $40 million promoting big-government ideas, such as the individual mandate.

His lobbying and promotion of the housing crisis and the health care mandate have helped to make him a wealthy man, but they have also put him outside the conservative mainstream on most issues.

While in Washington, Gingrich also refused to stand up on right-to-work laws and Second Amendment battles. He supported the Brady Bill and the Lautenberg rifle ban. He voted to create the U.S. Department of Education.

Gingrich will tell how he helped balance the budget and voted for President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts. So did many Democrats. Those two acts do not excuse the long and exhaustive list of things where Gingrich or other big-government politicians have gone against the principles of the conservative movement both in and out of Congress.

My concerns aren’t limited to the distant past.

In the race that helped launch tea party electoral activism in 2009, Gingrich earned the ire of conservatives nationwide for his endorsement of the liberal establishment Republican in a New York congressional race, just as the conservative, Doug Hoffman, was set to win. Gingrich returned to his Rockefeller liberal roots to support the candidate who favored abortion, and who was anti-right-to-work, anti-gun, and anti-family values.

Once Gingrich’s endorsed liberal Republican candidate realized she had no chance of winning, she chose to endorse the Democrat in the race instead of the conservative, Hoffman.

So much for Gingrich’s desire to put political party over principle. In the end, both lost.

This list could go on. So I will conclude by saying two things: Gingrich is not from the tea party. He is not even a conservative.

He is part of the Washington establishment I was sent to fight. He has been wrong on many of the major issues of the day, and he has taken money from those who helped cause the housing crisis and create millions of foreclosures.

What establishment politicians like Gingrich don’t understand is that the Republican Party wins when it stands up for what it believes in, as many of my new colleagues did in 2010.

We also win when we effectively run against big government. We cannot do that if we nominate a candidate who has both embraced it and been enriched by it.

We have a choice to make in a few weeks. If the tea party is to continue the work we resolved in 2010 to undertake, then we must not make a giant leap backward by electing big government, status quo Republicans like Gingrich in 2012.

Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20111209/OPINION01/312090025/-1/gallery_array/Rand-Paul-Republicans-would-take-giant-step-backward-by-choosing-Gingrich

So let me get this straight: Newt Gingrich was Ted Kennedy's ally in passing the the Brady Bill, the Lautenberg rifle ban, and the creation of the Department of Education. It begs the question: Was it during these big government buddy-buddy sessions with Ted Kennedy and his ilk that Newt Gingrich picked up his philandering habit?

Here is another video of Rand Paul joking about Gingrich having more positions than wives (From back in March!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62j93NbLL7U

[Politico]

The Newt Train is beginning to look more and more like the circus train (How soon before it derails?):

The gay half-sister of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed his position on gay rights on Wednesday and said she will support President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the 2012 election.

Gingrich is known for his socially conservative views and has said he opposes gay marriage. Gingrich-Jones, a director at the Humans Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, said he did not attend her wedding.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-gingrichtre7b70b4-20111207,0,6539803.story

[Antonio the Sixth]

ROFL

[CARLHAYDEN]

The Newt Train is beginning to look more and more like the circus train (How soon before it derails?):

The gay half-sister of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed his position on gay rights on Wednesday and said she will support President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the 2012 election.

Gingrich is known for his socially conservative views and has said he opposes gay marriage. Gingrich-Jones, a director at the Humans Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, said he did not attend her wedding.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-gingrichtre7b70b4-20111207,0,6539803.story

Please knock off the phony assertions.  Gingrich does NOT has "socially conservative views"!!!  Yes, right now he is sort of pretending to have such views, but his acting job on this matter is even phonier than Romney's.

[Politico]

The Newt Train is beginning to look more and more like the circus train (How soon before it derails?):

The gay half-sister of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed his position on gay rights on Wednesday and said she will support President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the 2012 election.

Gingrich is known for his socially conservative views and has said he opposes gay marriage. Gingrich-Jones, a director at the Humans Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, said he did not attend her wedding.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-rt-us-gingrichtre7b70b4-20111207,0,6539803.story

Please knock off the phony assertions.  Gingrich does NOT has "socially conservative views"!!!  Yes, right now he is sort of pretending to have such views, but his acting job on this matter is even phonier than Romney's.

I could not agree more that Gingrich is a phony's phony, and his family life is something from the Jerry Springer Show.

Thank you for pointing out all of this. I can only start off with so much these days...

This is quickly becoming an embarrassment for the Republican Party beyond what I expected. It looks like the jmfcsts are going to need to come around to Romney or embrace Huntsman. I can live with either decision by the kingmakers.

[Holmes]

lol, he didn't attend his sister's wedding. Family issues. How sad.

[Lambsbread]

ROFL

[RogueBeaver]

Team Romney is already running with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vma5oLGmbe0&feature=g-all

[© tweed]

maybe she'll be holding a joint Obama campaign event with Giuliani's daughter

[Averroës Nix]

First, this seems like a strange issue for Romney to pick up on. Didn't Republicans choose to stop talking about the Ryan plan because it terrifies seniors?

Second, I don't think that Romney has ever seemed more unlikable than he has over the past two weeks, and the overblown attack ads haven't helped. Will Romney will blow the nomination through the mistakes of his own campaign?

[RogueBeaver]

It isn't strange to pick up on the one issue where Romney has been on Gingrich's right for a while now. As to the second point, how's it overblown? There's no exaggeration in that spot.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I saw her on Rachel Maddow. The last name is actually pronounced Ging-rick (it only started sounding more like -rich when Newt moved from Pennsylvania to Georgia).

[Averroës Nix]

It isn't strange to pick up on the one issue where Romney has been on Gingrich's right for a while now. As to the second point, how's it overblown? There's no exaggeration in that spot.

1. First, Romney is marginally to the right of Gingrich on immigration. Second, Gingrich said something dumb and quickly backtracked from it. To my knowledge, his current position isn't any less conservative than Romney's. Regardless, I don't think that there are many substantive differences of opinion on policy between Gingrich and Romney. (In fact, one of the interesting feature's of Newt's rise is that he's managed to do so on a platform that is so similar to Romney's.)


2. Most attack ads are overblown; that's how they work. In this case, the use of music alone is enough to merit that label. More importantly, the purpose of the ad is to bring up the most embarassing moment of the Gingrich campaign, despite the fact that it happened over six months ago and without mentioning that Gingrich has retreated from and apologized for the remarks he made on Meet the Press.  Also, consider this statement from the conference call:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Zarn]

Yeah, I wonder what Paul thinks about Romney.

Not much...

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

THIS JUST IN: POLITICO ENDORSES RON PAUL

[Bull Moose Base]

For everyone's enjoyment, I have put back the part of the speech you cut out.  It's in blue!

Excerpts with the bold for personal emphasis (I was not aware of these facts about Gingrich)

Let me start with something important. I have two goals for 2012:

I want to prevent the European debt crisis from consuming America next.

I want to elect a president who will defend the ideas of constitutional conservatism and limited government.

Unfortunately, while all Republican candidates would be an improvement over the present administration, two of the current frontrunners simply do not represent the tea party, the conservative movement, or the type of change our country desperately needs in 2012.

Let me begin with the most obvious reasons:

Both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich supported the outrageous $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailouts — “one of the most unpopular government programs in American history,” even according to President Obama’s own Treasury Department.

Both Romney and Gingrich have been outspoken and unapologetic supporters of the individual mandate. This is the heart and soul of ObamaCare.

Since the tea party started as a reaction to Republicans who voted for TARP, and was strengthened into a national political force during the fight over ObamaCare, I believe this disqualifies both Romney and Gingrich from tea party support.

Not only that, but because the single biggest tasks of our next president will be to right our economy and undo President Obama’s signature health care scheme, can we really afford to nominate a candidate who doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to critical issues such as TARP and ObamaCare?

Moving past both those issues, however,

I believe Romney’s candidacy is well-established. He’s a moderate, northeastern, don’t-rock-the-boat Republican, and I think everyone in the party clearly understands that.

But what worries me is that the voters are being sold a bill of goods in Gingrich.

Gingrich began his career as a Rockefeller Republican from the liberal wing of the party. And though he has often spoken and occasionally acted like he left that wing, it is clear from his flip-flops and multiple “apologies” that his heart is still there.

His record features “highlights” such as global warming commercials with Nancy Pelosi, support for cap-and-trade, funding Planned Parenthood, and, recently, announcing that life does not begin at conception.

Not only that, but Gingrich took money as a Freddie Mac lobbyist — one of the well-known government-backed agencies that served as a root cause of the financial meltdown of 2008.

While one candidate in the race, my father, Rep. Ron Paul, was publicly warning about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the crisis they were helping to create, Gingrich was earning millions to not only endorse but also promote the status quo.

One group of Gingrich’s also took in nearly $40 million promoting big-government ideas, such as the individual mandate.

His lobbying and promotion of the housing crisis and the health care mandate have helped to make him a wealthy man, but they have also put him outside the conservative mainstream on most issues.

While in Washington, Gingrich also refused to stand up on right-to-work laws and Second Amendment battles. He supported the Brady Bill and the Lautenberg rifle ban. He voted to create the U.S. Department of Education.

Gingrich will tell how he helped balance the budget and voted for President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts. So did many Democrats. Those two acts do not excuse the long and exhaustive list of things where Gingrich or other big-government politicians have gone against the principles of the conservative movement both in and out of Congress.

My concerns aren’t limited to the distant past.

In the race that helped launch tea party electoral activism in 2009, Gingrich earned the ire of conservatives nationwide for his endorsement of the liberal establishment Republican in a New York congressional race, just as the conservative, Doug Hoffman, was set to win. Gingrich returned to his Rockefeller liberal roots to support the candidate who favored abortion, and who was anti-right-to-work, anti-gun, and anti-family values.

Once Gingrich’s endorsed liberal Republican candidate realized she had no chance of winning, she chose to endorse the Democrat in the race instead of the conservative, Hoffman.

So much for Gingrich’s desire to put political party over principle. In the end, both lost.

This list could go on. So I will conclude by saying two things: Gingrich is not from the tea party. He is not even a conservative.

He is part of the Washington establishment I was sent to fight. He has been wrong on many of the major issues of the day, and he has taken money from those who helped cause the housing crisis and create millions of foreclosures.

What establishment politicians like Gingrich don’t understand is that the Republican Party wins when it stands up for what it believes in, as many of my new colleagues did in 2010.

We also win when we effectively run against big government. We cannot do that if we nominate a candidate who has both embraced it and been enriched by it.

We have a choice to make in a few weeks. If the tea party is to continue the work we resolved in 2010 to undertake, then we must not make a giant leap backward by electing big government, status quo Republicans like Gingrich in 2012.

Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20111209/OPINION01/312090025/-1/gallery_array/Rand-Paul-Republicans-would-take-giant-step-backward-by-choosing-Gingrich

So let me get this straight: Newt Gingrich was Ted Kennedy's ally in passing the the Brady Bill, the Lautenberg rifle ban, and the creation of the Department of Education. It begs the question: Was it during these big government buddy-buddy sessions with Ted Kennedy and his ilk that Newt Gingrich picked up his philandering habit?

Here is another video of Rand Paul joking about Gingrich having more positions than wives (From back in March!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62j93NbLL7U

[memphis]

Not like Rand's dad is in the race or anything.  In any case, the Pauls are not representative of the rank and file Tea Partiers, who are just conservatives with a new name. The Pauls are like wormyguy and Tweed, perpetually dissatisfied with the status quo, no matter what.

[California8429]

You guys haven't seen this? I know this a year ago. She did say that she likes Callista because she makes him more sensible and less harsh/throwing less red meat because of Callista.

[Zarn]

Not like Rand's dad is in the race or anything.  In any case, the Pauls are not representative of the rank and file Tea Partiers, who are just conservatives with a new name. The Pauls are like wormyguy and Tweed, perpetually dissatisfied with the status quo, no matter what.

I'm dissatisfied with this post.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Not like Rand's dad is in the race or anything.  In any case, the Pauls are not representative of the rank and file Tea Partiers, who are just conservatives with a new name. The Pauls are like wormyguy and Tweed, perpetually dissatisfied with the status quo, no matter what.

I'm dissatisfied with this post.

[Politico]

Or how about the colonization of the moon? Because guess what: Newt Gingrich supports these Big Government initiatives...

Excerpts from David Brooks' latest editorial:

Gingrich loves government more than I do. He has no Hayekian modesty to restrain his faith in statist endeavor. For example, he has called for “a massive new program to build a permanent lunar colony to exploit the Moon’s resources.” He has suggested that “a mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways.”

I’m for national greatness conservatism, but this is a little too great.

Furthermore, he has an unconservative faith in his own innocence. The crossroads where government meets enterprise can be an exciting crossroads. It can also be a corrupt crossroads. It requires moral rectitude to separate public service from private gain. Gingrich was perfectly content to belly up to the Freddie Mac trough and then invent a Hamiltonian rationale to justify his own greed.

Then there is his rhetorical style. He seems to have understood that a moderate Republican like himself can win so long as he adopts a bombastic style when taking on the liberal elites. Most people just want somebody who can articulate their hatreds, and Gingrich is demagogically happy to play the role.

Most important, there is temperament and character.

In the two main Republican contenders, we have one man, Romney, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1950s, and another, Gingrich, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1960s. He has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with ’60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance. He just has those traits in Republican form.

As nearly everyone who has ever worked with him knows, he would severely damage conservatism and the Republican Party if nominated. He would severely damage the Hamilton-Theodore Roosevelt strain in American life.

It’s really too bad. We could have had a great debate about the progressive-conservative tradition. President Obama is now embracing Roosevelt. Gingrich has tried to modernize this tendency.

But how you believe something is as important as what you believe. It doesn’t matter if a person shares your overall philosophy. If that person doesn’t have the right temperament and character, stay away.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/brooks-the-gingrich-tragedy.html?_r=2&hp

[© tweed]

quoting from the NYT only serves to make the jmfcsts point for them