I’d take that poll cum grano salis. If Newt ends up candidate he very much risks talking down to a large portion of the electorate and alienating them.
yeah any ‘electability’ poll at this point means nothing
xp: thought you meant dwarves
Old spelling of Dover, maybe? Quiet town and if Newt shows up you can slip over to France.
i’m not usually one to rest on the common wisdom of the american people, but newt gingrich is a haphazard knowitall blowhard self-aggrandizing asshole and this is clear with any exposure to him. it’s basically his supposed strength, even. the whole country knew it a decade ago and they will un-forget real quick.
i don’t think it’s possible for him to sustain an actual campaign. i’m not even talking about his relationship to potential voters or the public (though that star will fade too), i’m talking about, like, being on a bus with people for weeks at a stretch. he can’t do it and won’t. yeah yeah romney is a creepy robot or whatever, but newt gingrich is a fucking jerk with a bejewelled skeksi for a wife. there is just no way. come on.
i give this another two weeks before it starts to fall apart. i should head to intrade...
newt gingrich is a fucking jerk with a bejewelled skeksi for a wife
this is fucking beautiful
Also on Sullivan today:
As a Canadian, I’m very proud. But I’m also mystified as to how Chile was left off.
“If you’re on the DNC/Obama email lists, you notice that the other team doesn’t bother attacking Newt. This isn’t complicated. They worry about Romney. They don’t worry about facing Gingrich.”
It’s possible that Democrats overestimate Romney and underestimate Gingrich for various reasons.
- Dems remember Gingrich as a washed-up liberal nemesis from the ’90s, and specifically a nemesis who was soundly thrashed by Bill Clinton. This makes him seem weak to them. But sometimes politicians learn from a defeat and come back stronger, cf. Nixon. Also, Obama may be a less wily adversary than Clinton was.
- Romney looks like the kind of candidate who Dems like to nominate for themselves—ie., a moderate, well-educated, well-spoken, technocratic Northeasterner—so he looks electable to them. They forget that the rest of the country doesn’t always like these kinds of candidates so much.
okay, mitt romney is TERRIBLE at retail politics.
i’m sort of torn on this. on the one hand, i think i’d hate doing this as much as romney obviously does. on the other hand, if he just relaxed — i.e., if he wasn’t looking for the sharp or witty line (which doesn’t work in these settings), or so quick to deliver a false greeting (and it shows), or so gifted as ruining the possibility of conversation (see virtually every effort to engage a voter here) — he’d be okay.
so basically you are saying if Mitt Romney was a little less like Mitt Romney, he’d be okay
no.
i am saying if mitt romney were a lot less like mitt romney, he’d be okay.
maybe he should just be himself. walk up to voters and say, “man, i hate this hand-shaking and hob-knobbing with the ‘people.’ so distasteful and unclean. but for pete’s sake, i’m running for president! can i count on your vote?”
- Dems remember Gingrich as a washed-up liberal nemesis from the ’90s, and specifically a nemesis who was soundly thrashed by Bill Clinton. This makes him seem weak to them. But sometimes politicians learn from a defeat and come back stronger, cf. Nixon. Also, Obama may be a less wily adversary than Clinton was.
I think it’s important to remember that Gingrich was chased out of DC not by the Democrats but by HIS OWN PARTY. Dude burned tons of bridges in the GOP, stabbed colleagues in the back to get the speakership, and has been out of office for over a decade for a reason. the party doesn’t want to back him.
DemocratMachine — Newt is up by 21. Anybody got any dirt on this man? Affairs? Shady business dealings? A long career in politics? Anything? #stumped #p2
lol
you’ve got to be kidding
Watching GOP poll numbers is like watching a serial cattle stampede.
I think o. nate’s post above is quite good. IMaybe there’s a Nixon/Gingrich parallel—that after years in the wilderness (Nixon in ’62 was more or less as disgraced as Gingrich in ’98), you come back a lot cagier, i.e., even more lethally cynical than before. A surprisingly human immigration stance from Gingrich may be his equivalent of the teenager Nixon planted in the audience with the phony “Bring us together” sign.
nixon did not divorce his wife cause she had cancer
I think it’s important to remember that Gingrich was chased out of DC not by the Democrats but by HIS OWN PARTY
Sure, but the reason they chased him out was because the Republicans over-all did poorly in the ’98 midterms, partly related to blow-back from the Clinton impeachment, even though Newt himself was re-elected. And they didn’t really chase him out anyway, he resigned on his own. Maybe they didn’t want him as speaker any more, but it was his own choice to leave the House. Whatever enemies he made among fellow Republicans in those days are probably not in a position of influence to impede his progress today.
right, the only thing that can impede him is people talking about basically anything he’s ever done in his life
<i>nixon did not divorce his wife cause she had cancer</i>
One of the most moving defenses of Nixon I’ve ever encountered.
McCain divorced his wife while she was recovering from a bad car accident, didn’t he? And that didn’t stop him from securing the nomination last time.
Read that as ‘screwing the nomination’
mccain had been in the spotlight for decades, ‘maverick’, warhero, whatever. gingrich’s bio isn’t established in the same way.
it’s a Rasmussen poll.
And they didn’t really chase him out anyway, he resigned on his own. Maybe they didn’t want him as speaker any more, but it was his own choice to leave the House. Whatever enemies he made among fellow Republicans in those days are probably not in a position of influence to impede his progress today.
These people would disagree.
One point Sullivan keeps making—I have no idea if this is true—is that Rasmussen polls are narrowly reliable when trying to figure out what Republicans are thinking.
Rasmussen leans right, yeah.
I’ll check in on Palin’s Facebook page now and again. Her true believers are understandably befuddled and distraught at the moment.
Whatever enemies he made among fellow Republicans in those days are probably not in a position of influence to impede his progress today.
lol you mean like Dick Armey? who bankrolls the Tea Party and hates Gingrich’s guts?
The term “gnome” wasn’t directed at Jim, no matter how short he may be
lol
actually I dunno how Armey feels about Gingrich these days, maybe it’s all water under the bridge
also lol nobody resigns on their own from an elected position. they resign because the alternatives are worse.
I could point you to the NRO debate about whether Gingrich and Billy shared an Irish whiskey by themselves; Armey is involved somehow.
The confusion and internecine shivings on the right are making me rub my hands in glee.
the very IDEA of two pols sharing a drink, like their claques always said Tip and Ronnie did.
McCain divorced his wife while she was recovering from a bad car accident, didn’t he? And that didn’t stop him from securing the nomination last time.
actually lol there are several parallels between mccain ’08 lol and gingrich ’11 lol.
lol romney getting passed on the racetrack by a 120 year-old lol
Dick Armey told me Newt and Bill Clinton had had secret meetings at which they talked about their girlfriends.
Those guys stick around for longer than you’d think. Apparently Boehner and Gingrich have some history too:
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/195427-lawmakers-not-flocking-to-gingrich
“He’s a guy of 1,000 ideas, and the attention span of a 1-year-old,”
LOLGOP — Michele Bachmann: “I will immediately reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It’s worked wonderfully in my marriage.”
______________________
LOLGOP — RT @Lizardoid: Bachmann is not opposed to gay people marrying, as long as the marriage is a loveless sham
okay that isn’t a real Bachmann quote is it
because if it is I might explode from lols
sadly, it isn’t.
nah, lolgop is all fake...but hilarious.
but it could be bachmann!
she says some crazy stuff!
I’m not sure that anyone cares too much what some old Republican Congressmen think of Newt though—if anyone lacks credibility in today’s political climate, it’s Congress. It’s more important what someone like Roger Ailes thinks:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1211/Foxs_temptation_Newt.html
thehill articles are interesting:
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/195427-lawmakers-not-flocking-to-gingrich
In contrast, Mitt Romney, another front-runner for the GOP nomination, has announced several Republican congressional endorsements in recent days, including Sens. John Thune (S.D.) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Rep. Charlie Bass (N.H.).
There’s some evidence that Romney’s campaign might be getting nervous — it pressed Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who represents Iowa’s neighbor to the west, to announce his endorsement early. Thune said he was thinking about waiting until closer to the caucuses.
Thune, who served with Gingrich in the House in 1997 and 1998, said his endorsement of Romney was not a statement against the former Speaker.
“It wasn’t like I was deciding against anybody, I just decided for Romney,” Thune said. “My view was that at certain times in the nation’s history you need certain styles of leadership. Right now we need somebody who knows what it’s like to turn failing enterprises around. Romney’s done that in business, he did that with the Olympics.”
do the ppl who are all “let’s run the US like a business” realize that we can’t just deport our unemployed citizens or are they just completely unaware of how most businesses are turned around/saved?
ah yes the failing business of the Olympics
all federal gov’t work will be outsourced to Bangalore
do the ppl who are all “let’s run the US like a business” realize that we can’t just deport our unemployed citizens or are they just completely unaware of how most businesses are turned around/saved?
Ask Florida how that Rick Scott thing is working out for them.
we love our governor stop being mean
I left Florida four months ago and he still haunts my dreams.
jesus christ, Halloween was two calendar pages ago, cut that out
I thought Marc Rubio was in charge of Florida who’s this Rick Scott clown
The governor.
Rubio is the junior senator.
I know just makin a lil joke
This is such a runaway story right now, maybe it really is about to come crashing down.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/romneys-rasmussen-gap-ctd.html
well, either the story or romney will crash down, it seems.
“what’s Gingrich’s fundraising lookin like?” is a more pertinent question than “what does Rassmussen say?”
a poll is a story
CAN WE ALL JUST BE BLOWN UP?
Romney ran in 2008, with almost the same electorate as today, and was soundly rejected then. That means there is a huge percentage of GOP voters who made up their minds against Romney once already. To me, that is very interesting.
What exactly has he done to fundamentally alter all those prior decisons to become favorable this time around? Seems to me, damn little.
That’s why his being annointed as the inevitable winner has always seemed so odd to me. Usually, after an abject failure, the candidate must at least go through the motions of re-inventing himself—unless, of course, he is Bob Dole.
Aimless- he has gone through the process of being less crazy than absolutely everyone around him, and also not having a name which means booty juices
Ergo, the serial stampede. It is always away from Romney, no matter where else it seems to be headed.
romney’s real pitch is to look to his left, look to his right on the GOP debate dias, then turn to the voters and say, “oh, you can’t vote for any of these guys, you know this.”
if gingrich can prevent romney from doing that, gingrich has a really good chance. but that remains to be seen, as gingrich can also be a clown.
If Boehner really hates Gingrich as much as that article suggests, then one interesting what-if game concerns how Gingrich becoming the front-runner might change the calculus among House Republicans—i.e., between playing ball with Obama on economic stimulus, and thereby helping their own re-election prospects, vs. stonewalling the stimulus and thereby helping the prospective nominee but opening themselves up to criticism in the fall. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but Boehner is suddenly sounding more reasonable about the possibility of a payroll cut.
It’s worked wonderfully in my marriage
Great way to squelch the rumors that your husband’s gay.
Boehner and Obama would have negotiated long ago if not for the Tea Party; he worries about his votes back home.
The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think that the party elite will suggest to the wingnuts that Newt is NOT a good pick or, that failing, will smear the heck out of him.
but it’s been happening already!
and to every not-Romney
the key is largely timing. newt is the last not-romney. it’s newt or nothing.
(cue rick santorum weeping silently)
Huntsman must be FURIOUS behind closed doors, lol
he is angrily listening to “Frownland” RIGHT NOW
It’s not really a matter of the Party Elite, such as it is, suggesting things to the base, which won’t listen to it anyway. All the satraps can do is withhold funding and watch as the unprepared, oafish Bachmanns, Perrys, Cains, and Gingrichs demonstrate their unworthiness for the nomination.
bite your tounge rick santorum never weeps he cries lightning and spits broken-glass
gingrich is less likely to totally screw-up.
he could — he is, after all, a clown — but he’s the kind of clown that’s appealed to the GOP base for a while now, and this particular GOP base is even more receptive to his reactionary vibe. and he is not mitt romney, so he has that going for him, too.
You guys are stuck with Romney.
did you renounce your citizenship or something?
I don’t know why I misread “reactionary vibe” so badly
I guess that would be more appropriate for Santorum
You guys are stuck with Romney.
i am stuck with romney, and romney’s stuck with me
(sung to the tune of the band-aid brand commercial)
did you renounce your citizenship or something?
― dr. strongo, Thursday, December 1, 2011 4:08 PM
there are by my count 247 members of the Politico editorial staff that are Communists.
Re: Huntsman. Seems so odd to me that a former governor of fucking UTAH is seen as such a liberal wuss by the Tea Party wingnuts.
now, THIS IS MORE LIKE IT
please note, DNC and GOP rivals: this is how to attack mitt romney.
and there is so — so — much more.
I love how that interview takes place in a warehouse, like they’re about to unpack some crates or make a drug deal or something
are they sitting in the middle of a costco
it isn’t a warehouse. it’s mitt romney’s secret chamber, where they keep his magic sarcophagus.
Meanwhile one last one from that Other McCain dude in terms of self-regard:
And back to the usual fun.
feasting nightly on the blood of hourly laborers
xpost...i think.
Is Huntsman hampered by being LDS, too? There’s a lot of ambiguity about them in this country.
You guys are stuck with Obamney.
Huntsman is more hampered by most ppl not knowing anything about him