Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is seeking “forgiveness” from voters as he mulls a 2012 presidential bid. By talking openly about his past indiscretions, and making “no bones,” as he told Fox News this week, “that there were times I did the wrong thing,” Gingrich appears to be courting skeptical social conservatives.
Will Gingrich’s redemptive tack fly in Iowa? Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, another potential contender making frequent sojourns to the Hawkeye State, has a unique take. He tells National Review Online that it is fair to question someone’s behavior but emphasizes that past mistakes should not preclude a candidate from being able to make a case for the presidency. In other words, you will not find Santorum wagging his finger on the trail.
Gingrich’s past, Santorum argues, as with all candidates, should be examined, but should not be the sole focus. “[Gingrich] should be able go out and still say what he believes is true,” he says. “He, like we all do, will have to account for our past decisions. People will take [his past] as a legitimate issue to consider, as to how it would affect his ability to do his job. I am not saying that it is not a legitimate question, but it’s not an issue with respect to the positions he takes.”
“There is a difference between legitimate issues of character — someone’s behavior — and the issue of whether someone who has done something wrong in their life, now because of those mistakes, can’t talk about what is the right thing to do,” Santorum explains. Politicians who have stumbled personally, he says, are capable of making values-based arguments. “I don’t think that’s hypocritical,” he says. “That’s a dangerous line that many folks tend to cross over — that because you made a mistake, you can’t talk about this or that issue. We all make mistakes.”
“For example, I smoked pot when I was in college. Does that mean that I can’t talk about drug use? Does that mean that I can’t talk about how that’s a bad thing? Of course not,” Santorum says. “You learn from those experiences.”
“Even during that time, I knew that what I was doing was wrong,” he continues. “But just because I failed, that does not mean that I shouldn’t be able to talk about it. That’s a different issue. It’s not hypocrisy, as long as you don’t say, ‘I thought it was right, and now think it was wrong.’ If you knew what was going on, and most people do, you have moments of weakness. It happens to all of us. But that should not deter people from talking about what they believe is right.”
Santorum notes that Mitt Romney, for instance, will also have the “burden” of “explaining his past decisions,” be it on his abortion stance or the Bay State health-care program. “There are questions with every candidate,” he observes. “That’s part of the reason of why I am looking seriously at the 2012 election cycle.”
Santorum will headline the Strafford County Republican Committee’s annual Lincoln-Reagan dinner in Durham, N.H., this evening.
The problem with Newt is not really he past indiscretions. It is that he has not really been on the national scene for a decade. He is associated with Clinton, and it is time to move on.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewt is very yesterday. And that commercial he made with Pelosi made me ill - ill.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere's smoking pot when one's in college. Then there's dumping two wives due to the affairs he's having while married (not to mention passing judgement on Clinton's cheating while behaving the same). The former might be seen as a "youthful discretion"; the latter as a serial adulterer.
Not quite equivalent.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm glad Santorum made this point - it's one that needed to be made more generally. Liberals often condemn conservatives as hypocrites because they have made mistakes in their past. Santorum's point goes to those accusations as well - a past mistake is not a permanent bar to someone speaking about and holding a position on a matter that touches on that mistake.
And he's right about Newt - let him make his case, and let people consider what he has to say. His past shouldn't be an absolute bar to his campaign nor should we be making some sort of "spotless" background a prerequisite for candidates - lest we run very short on people who can measure up.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe problem with Newt isn't so much "indiscretions," or an unwillingness to admit that he failed, or even people's unwillingness to accept certain kinds of failure.
It's that the man had so little personal insight and so little political sense that he took on the role of point man in dealing with a situation that had its roots in scandalous sexual behavior, while engaging in scandalous sexual behavior of the same nature himself *at the very same time.*
Yes, I know, and agree, that the Lewinsky situation was, from a legal standpoint not "about sex." But it still doesn't speak well for a man's understanding of himself, or of political reality, that he could be engaged in the most blatant kind of illicit sexuality at the same time that he was going after a man for getting himself in legal trouble as a result of blatantly illicitly sexuality. That doesn't mean that no one should have been leading the impeachment process -- it means that I could never trust anyone who was so foolish as to think that he should have been the one to do it under those conditions, both as a matter of moral position, and political effectiveness. And as far as I know, he's never acknowledged the political folly and moral idiocy of his position. That's a huge strike against him, in my mind.
I think what Santorum said is great, I just think there are other things at work in Gingrich's case that work against the application of it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe 2012 election is for U.S. President, not for Most Prodigal Son.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSantorum's "mistake" of smoking pot in college might have had a permanent effect on his runs for office if he had been arrested for it. If he doesn't believe his life would have been improved by being arrested, it ought to inform his opinions about our drug laws.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@reldim = Not sure that anyone is saying that "mistakes" should be a permanent bar. It is a bar too high for Newt, IMO. Fool me once...
Also, Santorum's generosity is a bit convenient considering the bar he has to hurdle.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI might be able to forgive Newt his serial cruelty to his past wives if he weren't also a bloviating cheeseball.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAll I want from the "bloviating cheeseball" (Hee hee) is for him to go away.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>> It’s not hypocrisy, as long as you don’t say, ‘I thought it was right, and now think it was wrong.’ <<
Er, NO, Rick, that wouldn't be hypocrisy, either. That would be changing your mind. Or maybe "learning".
Hypocrisy would be saying that pot smoking is wrong now *while continuing to smoke pot*. Or condemning adultery while carrying on an affair. Condemning adultery - including your own past sins in that regard - while turning over a new leaf is not hypocricy.
Neither is condemning a middle aged man in a position of authority who takes advantage of a ditzy young subordinate and then lies about it under oath. Newt could have had a harem during the Clinton impeachment without being guilty of hypocricy because he wasn't going after Bill for breaking his marriage vows but for breaking the law, and violating his oath of office. (BTW, if Clinton were the president of Chrysler or GE and had been caught diddling a 20-something intern he would have been fired immediately, and faced a huge sexual harrassment suit. What Clinton did was much worse than anything Clarence Thomas was - falsely - alleged to have done, and liberals told us he was unfit for government service of any kind.)
Having said all that, I have no use for Newt as a candidate. He can be an interesting and provactative thinker, but he resembles Clinton (and Obama) is lacking two qualities vital to a President - humility and a sense of irony about himself. Newt and Clinton were alike in the deadly seriousness with which they took themselves and their inability see the ridiculous in themselves. Even in apologizing for his past "indiscretions" Newt treats the matter gravely. There is no room for a rueful shake of the head over the *appearance* of hypocricy in his treatment of Clinton.
George W. Bush felt that he was as good a candidate for the presidency as anyone else running at the time, and better than most. But I think any man with a hint of self-awareness has to enter into the office held by Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln with tiny voice inside him saying that his election is just absurd and that he is utterly unfit for the task. I think that is the *normal* response to actually being sworn in as President. (Ronald Reagan, for all his confidence and purpose, felt that sense of unreality and tremor of self-doubt.)
I don't think Clinton did. I don't think Obama did. And I don't think Newt would. And that is reason enough all by itself for me to vote against him in the primary, if he makes it that far. A President needs to be able to laugh at himself, because everybody else will be at one time or another.
Regards,
Joe
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen you do the same thing twice, it shows that you don't think it's a mistake.
Newt has proved that he's simply a man of huge appetites who has enough power, money and status to indulge those appetites. Only the prettiest and healthiest women will do; when a woman turns out to be defective, he takes her back to the Refund Desk and buys a new one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMostly, I dread the idea of Candidate Newt because the man - for all his intelligence and creativity - is not a conservative. As a matter of fact, his "creativity" is why he isn't a small-government conservative (nor, even, in some eyes, a conservative at all) - he thinks government can come up with creative solutions to America's problems.
I don't care if they can come up with "solutions", it isn't their job in most cases. I don't want anyone who thinks that way to be in charge of either the executive or legislative branches.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewt's serial adultery bothers me a lot. But not as much as Rick Santorum's not being able to even win re-election to his Senate seat.
Not impressed with either one's ability to win votes in a general election. And that is the big question.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWinston Churchill once summarily dismissed the application of a man who had been referred to him as "...having no vices," with the observation that he had found, in his life, "that a man with no vices has the same number of virtues."
Having said that, and with respect to Gingrich's occasionally genuine brilliance and originality, steadiness and prudence are not among the virtues I haved noted in him. He is a man whose talents I value in a legislator, while praying that he is never president.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe most important thing about this interview is what it shows us of Santorum--his candor, sense of proportion and common sense. Despite his loss during a strongly anti-Republican trend, he's the one I'd like to see carrying the GOP banner.
As for Gingrich, even ignoring the sad marital history, he's too often played up to our enemies, too often shown political weakness.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTwo points-
1. Anecdotally, I've talked to several conservative women....and to a one, they dislike even loathe Newt. The "He left Wife #2 sick with cancer for Wife #3" story reminds them too much of that sleaze John Edwards.
2. Sorry, but Rick Santorum is the one conservative who is accurately satirized by Stephen Colbert to a tee. He is completely vapid and self-parody. I don't even think he wants Prez...I think he's just hoping to keep his name around for a Veep pick by a more moderate Top Slotter who needs "bona fides" with social conservatives.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am very fond of Mr. Newt. I find him intelligent, insightful, serious, and I appreciate his "Contract with America" accomplishments.
I have always said if it were between Newt and any Democrat, Newt wins my vote. However, I say that about any conservative and a Democrat too.
I have also always said Newt is in my Top 3, and he still is, fit to be Speaker of the House.
However he is an awesome historian, and spends a great deal of his time looking toward the past. My problem with Mr. Newt is that he does not utilize the correct lessons of history to apply them properly towards the future. I know he thinks he does, but he in fact doesn't. If he did he was in the perfect position to highlight all of the things we are dealing with today, and he didn't.
I wrote a thesis on our economic condition in 1986. I deduced in 1986 that we would be where we currently are in 2017. I was off by a few years due to the creation of Obama, I had no way to know that beast was coming. I did predict Social Security perfectly, and everything else is within the proper decade.
This is where it gets interesting, as I had made many more predictions that have yet to occur. These are based upon historical data and events, not Nostradamus all nighters looking into a vessel of water. I took things to their logical conclusions based upon previous behaviors and data.
Man has not changed in all of his modern form, we do today what they did 100,000 years ago and prior. I did not have to create or reinvent a future, I simply had to continue the trends. I saw the dot bomb 3 months prior, the housing 2 years prior, the stocks 2 years prior etc.
When I match what I know with what Mr. Newt says, I know he is not the man on the white horse we so desperately need. I also knew for a fact Obama nor McCain would help matters. However, I do see one that could be the man on the white horse i have waited my entire adult life to see as President. It remains unknown if he will be a candidate or not, but if he should, I will post why he is, and do everything I can to ensure he is elected.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think Newt is missing out on the meaning of the Tea Party movement. A "Tea Party-ish" candidate is what we need - someone with experience, strong conservative convictions, someone with not a lot of (im)moral baggage.
Whoever is "Reality Check" (comment #1) is spot on. I wish he/she could've suggested a few good candidates for us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEverything is always so black and white for the party of "family values" when others are transgressing. The mental gymnastics that conservatives go through to forgive one of their own or to minimize and justify past indiscretions is awe inspiring. When Gingrich or Santorum or Palin inveighs against the godless liberals, they should probably do a little self-examination before passing judgment. Or maybe they should take Bob Livingston's cue and just slink off the stage before more of the truth comes out. None of us are perfect; we could all do with a little less judgment from those who are equally flawed.
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