Are Republicans seriously suggesting that this man could be president of the US?
UPDATE: Apparently the old-guard Republican party is terrified that Gingrich might win the nomination. National Review just published a scathing attack on Gingrich, saying:
His character flaws — his impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas — made him a poor Speaker of the House. Again and again he combined incendiary rhetoric with irresolute action, bringing Republicans all the political costs of a hardline position without actually taking one. Again and again he put his own interests above those of the causes he championed in public.
The same article praised Romney and Huntsman.
Meanwhile, Gingrich’s poll numbers are starting to fall.
As an added bonus, here’s Mark Fiore’s hilarious cartoon about Gingrich (the anti-Mitt):
2 Comments
At least he is intelligent. And some of his ideas are actually good ones. Of course even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The Republicans will commit the same error the Democrats did in 2004 – fielding a candidate so weak that they fail to beat an incumbent that would lose to anyone credible.
I personally think Obama has done a decent job, and given the resistance and monomaniacal attacks that decent job rises to amazing. But he is not the President I thought he would be, and I only hope he gets better in his second term.
Arthanyel, this may be too picky of me, but I just can’t buy this idea that Newt is intelligent. He is clever, cunning and nimble. He is a tricky, effective debater but he does and says too many stupid things to qualify as intelligent in my book. If he weren’t so nimble, everyone would see through his academic affectation. Ezra Klein once described Dick Armey as “a stupid person’s idea of what a thoughtful person sounds like.” Gingrich matches that description far better than Armey ever could.
Another perhaps picky point, I don’t think Kerry was a weak candidate. I thought he was a better candidate than Gore who beat Bush 4 years earlier. The difference is that Bush and the Republicans were riding high on the post 9/11 uber-patriotism and in that context the despicable swiftboaters were very effective.
Change your statement to “The Republicans will commit the same error the Democrats did in 1972 – fielding a candidate so weak that they fail to beat an incumbent that would lose to anyone credible” and I’ll agree whole-heartedly.
The National Review article starts with a very good point in it’s first paragraph:”A hard-fought presidential primary campaign is obscuring the uncharacteristic degree of unity within the Republican party.” These clowns agree on everything significant. They only differ in their personal choice of face-paint.