In the week before the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich was averaging 22 percent in the polls, per Real Clear Politics, and trailing Mitt Romney by six points. But when the vote was tallied on Saturday, Gingrich had won 40 percent of the vote to Romney’s 28 percent. What had happened to give Gingrich such a gigantic boost?
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Talking to voters at Gingrich campaign events in the Palmetto State in the days before and the day of the primary, I heard plenty of enthusiasm about the two debates that preceded the vote — and for the feisty, take-no-prisoners persona that Gingrich projected on screen. But I also heard concerns about Romney and Rick Santorum, and a belief that Gingrich was not just a debater, but an experienced politician who had already proved that he could smash through Washington’s gridlock and achieve significant legislative victories.
Take the case of Barbara Young, whom I met Saturday morning at Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C. This was the restaurant at which both Gingrich and Romney had scheduled simultaneous visits, and its parking lot was jammed with excited supporters of both candidates waving signs. (In the end, the two candidates did not visit at the same time.) Young, a housewife from Travelers Rest, S.C., was holding a Newt sign, but said she had been seriously considering Romney earlier in the cycle. Part of what appealed to her about Gingrich was his honesty about his past failings. “I’m just afraid that Mr. Romney — there’s going to be something brought up in the bigger campaign,” she said, adding she didn’t know exactly what could come out. Romney, she added, was “just a little too slick.”
Another factor that likely hurt Romney this week was “Winning Our Future,” the super PAC backing Gingrich that hit the airwaves in South Carolina. In Iowa, Gingrich was fending off negative attacks ads from both Ron Paul and the Romney super PAC, “Restore Our Future.” Now, it was payback time. Listening to conservative talk radio in South Carolina, I heard over and over again an ad that featured a clip of Romney saying that, if an underage girl couldn’t get permission from her parents for an abortion, she could ask a judge for permission. At Mutt’s BBQ on Thursday, Greenville resident Claire Stancik told me she had seen the ad and was troubled by it. “I didn’t like that abortion business, that judge being able to override a parent’s decision on abortion for their child,” she said. “I heard his voice say it.”
But what about Santorum? The news that he had won Iowa seemed to have come too late to influence South Carolinians. Michael Lemocks, who was at Gingrich’s Chick-fil-A rally on Saturday with his wife and young son, had been wavering between Santorum and Gingrich in the weeks before the election. Ultimately, he opted for Gingrich. “I see a passion in Newt Gingrich that I don’t see in Santorum,” he said, saying that Gingrich had something akin to a “fire deep within the gut” when it came to halting President Obama’s promised “fundamental transformation of America” and changing the country’s course.
I know who loses: future generations. The only good thing about Obama winning again (should Newt be the candidate) is that bloated creep would not be POTUS and his trollop won't be FLOTUS.
They debate each other .. on issues important to the nation .. Gingrich wins ... America wins.
Compare this to Romney vs Obama ... no contest .. Obama will eat Romney alive ... Romney could not even stand up to McCain .. his "tax returns" have been an issue (unfair issue in my mind) since the 90s ... and still no response !!! Obama will LAUGH at him.
So, I'll take the fight. Maybe not my favorite fighter, but he'll fight.
With his ego completely unchecked, he does a Kerry "for it before I was against it" every week and a Perot "Larry? Larry? Can I talk now? Can I talk now?" every two weeks in his "War on the Media" mode.
Debates? The President merely quotes previous Newt comments contradicting himself, from the individual health care mandate, to climate change, to Libya no-flys, etc. Gingrich even TRIES to bring up "defending traditional marriage", the President just smiles at the camera and rolls his eyes over to Newt's podium.
40 states and 15% or more margin of the popular votes fall into the President's lap.
It bodes certain fatality for our country of hypocritical degenerate perverts when their antiChristian bigotry (including that of "christian" "pastors") so controls that such derangement means people are quite happy to embrace the adultery and divorce Gingrich epitomizes in ways that our Founders would have condemned. They promised such abandonment of Christ would be fatal, and it is proving to be so, pragmatism replacing God as truth, even for useful idiot "pastor" Larry who clearly knows far less about the Bible than his Newt Playboy and likes it that way, denying the sovereignty and Word of the God he pretends to represent.
What? Your rant is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Honestly, and with all due respect, I can't make heads or tails of whatever point (assuming there is one) you are trying to make.
One column today says that Romney needs to effect a quick personality change to win. The same applies to Santorum. On paper, he should be sweeping social conservatives. But everybody, including myself, seems to be turned off by his school-marm attitude. Early in the debates last year, I remember thinking that he looked irritable and uncomfortable on the stage, as though he couldn't believe he had to put up with all the fools around him. Gingrich, by contrast, has an echo of Reagan's sunny disposition. Santorum can still win, but only if he stops being so pedantic and becomes a little more sunny. I have seen him at his best, when he is comfortable, and he is very likeable then. But his default mode seems to be "the church lady." My mental image of him in the debates is a petulant little half-sneer. And I am totally a social conservative!
I loved what Andrew McCarthy said the other day about analyzing politicians (intoning FDR, who - a poster informed the readers - was intoning Grover Cleveland) "Judge me by the enemies I make."
The more that the Democrats, the MSMedia, and the Republican Establishment (politicians, operatives, and pseudo conservative journalists) freak out over Newt Gingrich, the more disposed I am to be receptive to him. Apparently I'm not alone in that.
No, you are not alone. But you also are not part of the large segment of voters in the 10 (or so) swing states with "independent" voters. They will decide the election, and I would wager that Romney would win a majority of them, while Gingrich would lag far behind. In a general election, Newt's chances are slim.
I don't believe anyone has raised concerns with the pasty doughboy's "color". It's telling that you avoided using the word (character) used in MLK's famous formulation.
Four more years of Barry the failure, coming right up.
I am no Republican establishment sir! I’m a Conservative woman.
But I could never in a million years vote for a disgraced Speaker of the House, a Washington influence peddler, who took millions from Freddie Mac as a Lobbyist, a serial cheater who left two sick wives at their most vulnerable times and then claims victim and calls them liars.
Newt is extraordinary only in the fact that he is the only candidate that can single-handedly win the DNC another Presidency as he did in 1996.
If I were a member of either the mainstream media, democrat, or republican establishment I would be looking inward about now and asking myself if I had managed to severe my connection to my humanity.
My take:
The fore noted have declared war against these truths we hold to be self evident; the laws of nature and natures God.
How can a nearly lifelong insider get away with being an outsider?? Well we believed Obama would bring hope and change and that he wasn’t a socialist, we fools will believe anything.
Don’t get me wrong, if Newt wins the primary he has my vote but he does frighten me (just not as much as four more years of President Obama)
Here’s why, arguably he is more of an egomaniac then President Obama and that’s saying something.
Newt is a brilliant rhetorician and speaker but one in the mold of Alcibiades…preternaturally gifted demagogue who’s every machination is to advance his own personal agenda. Sometimes for the benefit of the country, other times not.
Yes President Obama we know is cold, calculating, manipulative and willing to say or do anything to advance his agenda…but at least we know exactly what that agenda is (transformation to a European socialist like state). As crazy and as foolhardy of an agenda as that is…with Newt we have a man who is every bit as cold, calculating, manipulative and willing to say or do anything as President Obama but with the aim of advancing Newt.
Sure we got lucky in the 90’s when it was in Newt’s interest to advance the Republican cause and he did some good things there but his history is replete with episodes of exaggerating (and occasionally lying), bullying, mischief making and hurting others for his personal gain.
With President Obama we have a socialist like ideologue president; Newt as president would give us an antisocial personality with grandiose schemes of unknown proportions. Yes we could get lucky like we did in the 90’s, but we could get very unlucky too…that’s a big gamble to take. I’m willing to take it because I’d say we have a 50-50 shot at a better result than with our current president, but betting the nation on a 50-50 shot is frightening.
I am with you all the way. Newt has proclaimed that he is a "Real Politik Wilsonian" and that his favorite President is FDR and Teddy Roosevelt (founder of the Progressive Bullmoose Party) and then there was an interview that I just heard on the radio where he said that he has never said that, ever. I can provide the clips where he said exactly that, his voice, his words. The man is a liar in the same mold as Obama; one has an R by their name and the other has a D. Letters don't mean much to me in a Presidential election when they appear beside a candidates name. Their moral character and their objectives on where they would lead the country are my main concerns. I am seriously concerned as to the direction either of these people would take us. I feel most comfortable with Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and then Newt, in that order. Newt is a last chance vote as far as I am concerned. God help us if he is the last man standing, there is no telling where he would lead us.
So now the GOP is left with two choices- 1. a candidate that a majority of their own Party can't stand, who also shows a tendency to be weak and indecisive. or 2. a candidate who a majority of the country can't stand (check out Newt's negatives in any poll you like), who also has a tendency to egomania, totally destroys the GOP claim to "family values", and saying things that blow up in his face.
Is there anybody left who will claim this is simply "primary politics as usual" and deny that what the Republican Party is in the midsts of is a full-out, take-no-prisoners civil war?
Latest Rasmussen Reports Florida poll has Team Newt up by 9 points over Team Mitt; 41% to 32%.
"Less than two weeks ago, Mitt Romney had a 22-point lead in Florida, but that’s ancient history in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Following his big win in South Carolina on Saturday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich now is on top in Florida by nine."
Didn't I just read the other day that Marco Rubio’s Mallea joined Newt Gingrich’s Florida team as well?
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