For Newt Gingrich, the latest in a series of unelectable Republican presidential contenders to rise up as a frontrunner, any endorsement, even from “America’s worst newspaper,” is a welcomed endorsement.
Gingrich's Skeletons Await (via The Economist)
The New Hampshire Union Leader may not have a strong track record when it comes to influencing presidential elections, but when international pundits are making the observation that the Republican Party would have to be “feeling particularly suicidal” to award Gingrich the nomination, it’s no-cred fish rags like the Union Leader that give a depressed presidential campaign reason to stay the course, however doomed.
As everyone predicted, the Herman Cain wave crashed, and as a result the former Speaker of the House found himself floating to the top of the polls after six months of being anchored to the bottom of the shallow end of the GOP candidate pool.
Mostly disregarded by the press as a washed-up, burnt-out, has-been shellback whose presidential ambitions were assumed to be recorded as an “also-ran” footnote in whatever post-’90s history books that bothered mentioning him at all, Gingrich is now the undisputed leader of an eight-deep presidential roster, according to polls.
He was next in the line of third-tier candidates to be beckoned from the shadows of irrelevance and emerge as the latest and greatest—if still generally unacceptable and unelectable—conservative alternative to the loathed frontrunner, Mitt Romney.
And that, in essence, is the only real significance of the Union Leader’s endorsement: the slightly more electable, moderately more likeable Mitt Romney was “snubbed” by the largest-circulation newspaper in the first state to hold a primary election in 2012.
The nod to Gingrich, even if he is a “shrewd,” fidelity-challenged “demagogue,” shouldn’t necessarily be written off as yet another throw-away endorsement from the politically eccentric publisher of a “neo-Nazi” newspaper that’s been on the wrong side of history in seven out of eight contested primaries over the past four decades. Compared to the Union Leader’s back-to-back endorsements of Pat Buchanan in 1992 and ’96, picking Gingrich (instead of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum) makes “America’s worst newspaper” almost look mainstream.
But the Union Leader isn’t as crazy as its publisher tries to claim. The front-page editorial announcing the backing of Gingrich was anything but crazy, and the prerequisites by which Gingrich was selected were anything but radical.
“We don’t back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers,” it read. “We look for conservatives with courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job.”
Real Clear Politics polls
The news reporters, pundits and bloggers who described the endorsement as “stunning” and “significant” likely weren’t referring to the influence this endorsement will have on Gingrich’s odds of securing the Republican nomination or winning the New Hampshire primary. The “stunning” “significance” is the not-so-subtle critique of Romney, whom the Union Leader believes is uncourageous, lacking in his convictions, ungrounded in his beliefs, and unequipped for the job of president.
Romney wasn’t just snubbed by the leading newspaper in the leading primary state despite being a “nearly native son of New Hampshire” and after literally buying the support of nearly every Republican politicians from city council to the United States Senate. He was shunned, and if the reasons for endorsing the latest anti-Romney candidate make the Union Leader look crazy, then so must be the 80 percent of Americans who aren’t currently backing Romney either.
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” as they say.
Well, to be honest, Newt does have a core belief. He believes that he’s better than anyone else, all evidence to the contrary. Heck, he believes in marriage so strongly, he’s done it three times.
Gingrich is the true anti-Obama. Obama is obvious committed marital fidelity, discussion and fairness and has, despite his obvious intellect and charm, shunned money and fame for most of his adult life to lead a fairly modest career of a law professor and community organizer.
Gingrich is everything Americans hate about politicians. A sanctimonious hypocritical blowhard who would sell his own soul for money and power. And like his “brother from another mother”, Herman Cain, Gingrich like ‘hoes in different area codes’. And he’s also used his experience and name recognition to get filthy rich. If you can get run out of the 90′s Republican Party – you’re in deed a slime ball. Newt Gingrich is completely unethical and a liar.
Now, the bigger question is this, how much of a cyborg for the banking lobby is Romney that the Tea Party wants to elevate this crook they pretty much banished since the late 90′s to the big chair? Is voting for Mormon that loathsome to the Christian Right?
And what’s more bothersome is that Republicans are considering any of these clowns (Yes you too, Huntsman. You’re not a complete loon, but jumping ship after 2 years to run against your former boss is pretty damn low.) to replace Obama is even crazier. Is a smart, honest Black man in charge too much of the closet Klansmen of the Tea Party?
Actually, I’m fairly glad to see Gingrich getting his turn in the spotlight. The GOP presidential candidates are sufficiently crooked and/or incompetent and/or mentally unstable that the spotlight is never kind to them, even in the eyes of a mediocre punditry and a tuned-out electorate. And Gingrich is no exception.
By all means, let the spotlight shine on him. Let all those skeletons come tumbling out of his closet. Remind everyone what an odious creep he is. And then move the spotlight over to the next useful idiot (useful, i.e., in showing everyone what a disaster the GOP has become). I’m still thinking that Mittens will end up defaulting into the nomination, name someone certifiable as his running mate, and get his ass lit up in the general.
Remember that the New Hampshire Union Leader ran an editorial that said the New Hampshire National Guard should be given tactile nukes in case there was a riot or protest somewhere in the state.