Romney is closing in Florida by reproducing a long-ago Tom Brokaw report on Newt’s ethics. Two things: 1) A Big Three news anchor is, needless to say, not the most sympathetic source for conservative voters. (Allah thinks the Romney campaign must be hoping to prompt a fight with NBC over use of the old report–if so, it’s already happening.) 2) The ethics imbroglio was much ado and the fruit of a partisan assault on Newt, as Byron reminds us here.
>>The ethics imbroglio was much ado and the fruit of a partisan assault on Newt, as Byron reminds us here.
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The idea that Newt is getting hit with some hardball politics makes me so sad. [sarcasm] Newt is such a nice man, so fair, so honest, such a straight-shooter, a man who, himself, would never distort or take advantage of unpleasant facts that are incontrovertibly true (the ethics probe/ "scandal" happened) and use them to further damage the reputation of his opponent.
Okay, it is not much of a defense to say that Newt is kind of a sleaze and, in fact, pretty much everybody in politics is ethically challenged when it comes to campaign fights. Actually, I am extremely troubled that we are going to select a president, as we always do, on the basis of agitprop aimed at the centrist voter who has no more real interest than to be reached by 30-second commercials that disturb his television watching.
All that being said, it is what it is, and campaigns are what they are, and they are dirty. IMO, Romney, Santorum, and Paul are all rather gentlemanly by political standards. Newt and Chicago pol Barak Obama are both in the worst tradition of hardball politics. I am glad to see Mitt sharpening his claws on this arrogant, pompous, narcissistic "professor"/pol/influence peddler. Weren't we all just beating our breasts for fear that Romney did not have it in his gentlemanly, last-WASP self to win a championship political fight?
We don't reform ugly politics in the midst of the campaign. The years furtherest from major combat is the time to talk about reforms. For now, I would be happy to show up as an unaffiliated, one-man, Donald Sagretti-style, booster of Romney's prospects. I was thinking that if I could identify a pathway that Newt was likely to walk, I could spread some bananas along the way. If caught, I would just flash my Sagretti grin while eating a banana and insist that I just like bananas (and my doctor said that they were a good source of potassium). Wost case, I figure, I'd do a 30-day stretch for littering.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI should have added, after all the sarcasm, that I have no beef with Lowry or NRO for the item that he posted. I don't really know anything about Gingrich's ethics troubles -- the ones he got into trouble for in the House -- so if Byron York says the charges were dubious, they probably were. Could be that Republicans voted against him because he was such a jerk and was besmirching conservatism and leading the GOP off a cliff (after leading the revolution) that they wanted him out by any means possible. So NR is just doing its job to illuminate these matters. I'm just putting Mitts campaign tactics into perspective and -- as he is the candidate whom I am supporting -- defending him where I think his "sins" are standard political stuff.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI just watched and listened to a 45 minute live video, and I was able to watch it even though the source of the video was only two miles away from me. The marvel of the Internet.
This makes the third time I have watched Newt Gingrich live, and in a session different from the debate stages.
The man impresses me more than I can say. His knowledge of Government, and his grasp of how to solve real problems at all levels of government, is simply, stellar.
This is what you want in a President of the United States.
Stop listening to the pundit class. I have admiration and warmth for the intellect of Rich Lowry. I watched him when he would fill in for David Brooks on the PBS NewsHour, and he would leave Mark What'sHisName, the awful Liberal, literally openmouthed every time.
But Newt Gingrich is in a class far beyond. Among the people left standing, he is The Man.
Read his books and papers, read his proposals, and form your own opinion and don't take anybody else's word for it.
Your opinion is only worth the amount of research you have put into it personally.
Make yours count.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney obviously did not read Byron York's article, because if he had he could not in good conscience run that ad.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is Romney as I want to see him. Take no prisoners. Not Newt, not Obama.
When I witnessed the Dem weakness after 9/11 re: how GWB responded to our generation's Pearl Harbor, I witnessed the Dems surrender to terror. As stated in Harry Reid's the "WAR IS LOST" proclamation, before The Surge had any chance to work (in which Obama concurred with Reid).... I changed my mind about the Democrat Party. To me, FDR, HST, JFK were America first Democrats. They were all hawks on defending US. That was then.
This new Dem Party's craven policy of appeasement, which is manifest today in the Obama/Holder/Reid non recognition that radical Islam is the enemy of America, is worthy only of contempt.
Vote GOP...or join Obama's Occupy America mob.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf the ethics scandal is much ado about nothing, it is quite interesting that the vast majority of Republicans joined in this "partisan" attack in voting to sanction Gingrich.
What universe does Rich Lowry inhabit this afternoon?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSomehow this doesn't take the sting out of a VAT and living under Obamacare regardless of who the next president is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs per this article the Romney campaign admitted stacking the audience for Thurs. debate
at two critical debates here (where his team made sure Mr. Romney had ample and vocal supporters in the audiences) and even by sending supporters to mock him at his own events.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney is a cowardly little weasel and always has been. There is a reason why the 2008 field despised him so much---as do the conservatives in this field.
One thing you can count on is that if he picked Tom Brokaw to be his running mate, Rich Lowry would be penning editorials on how wonderful Brokaw is.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"A Big Three news anchor is, needless to say, not the most sympathetic source for conservative voters."
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Has anyone seen Brokaw's Q-rating?
There is at least one demo with which Brokaw is extremely popular: Old people. Not coincidentally, there are a TON of old people in FL, the vast majority of whom vote Republican. So, while this won't be a popular commercial with some of the more unhinged conservatives (some of which can be heard from in this very comment section), it will resonate effectively with people who actually matter - voters.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo... your premise is that most GOP Florida primary voters will be old non-conservatives who esteem Tom Brokaw?
And you're calling other people unhinged?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney enjoys his greatest margins with those over 65. The largest demographic of any evening news program is the over 65 demo. This is why they're advertising Avodart, Boniva and Depends on the Nightly News and they don't advertise Budweiser & BMX bikes.
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The recent polling also shows that old people make up the age group that is most influenced by television ads. So, Romney went out and found a commercial delivered by a guy who has a Q-Rating higher than any media personality in the country other than Oprah, and aired it as a commercial pointed directly at the most active constituency in FL. It's brilliant.
I know, all this sciencey stuff can be confusing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat it's targeted at the 65+ crowd is neither all you said nor what I objected to.
Of course, you know that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat part of, "So, while this won't be a popular commercial with some of the more unhinged conservatives...it will resonate effectively with people who actually matter - voters.", don't you get?
The comfortable plurality of Republican voters in FL are old. Old people love Tom Brokaw. Tom Brokaw is seen in a commercial excoriating Newt Gingrich. Res ipsa loquitur.
The commercial is genius, and it's most effective with the demographic that is most singularly important in Republican primary candidates: Old Republicans.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm not sure how you can break voters into under 65 and 65+ and then have a "plurality."
Then again, I'm not a Mitt supporter, so I've never been enamored with my own intelligence. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand it, just like I was neither smart enough to cast my primary vote for Mitt, nor to overlook his leftist ways and his lack of credentials to be President.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"so I've never been enamored with my own intelligence. "
That seems like the safe bet.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAt least one of us can make that claim.
The other one thinks you can have two only options and still get a plurality - but is quite sure he's smarter than everyone else in the room.
Funny, you'd expect someone with such a high opinion of themselves to be attracted to Newt...
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I'm not sure how you can break voters into under 65 and 65+ and then have a "plurality.""
I'm pretty sure the two polls I cited have more than two demographic age groups cited.
Like I said, this sciencey stuff seems to be very confusing for you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>>The recent polling also shows that old people make up the age group that is most influenced by television ads.
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Scott, my parents are gone now, but my dad lived to a robust 91-years-old. (Knew his only moment of sports glory when -- at 86 and legally blind -- he hit a hole-in-one. Morning radio shows from around the country were calling to chat him up on the air. Fun, and a great thing for him.)
But to the point, one of the things that I really did not like to see as he aged was the disappearance of his healthy skepticism. He taught that lesson ~to me~, as most parents do. So I found it really disconcerting to see him fall for medical scams like a clinic, with a fancy facade, that specializes in promising old people that their back pain can be cured. Actually, it was his (2nd) wife's back pain, and he wanted it fixed for her. More disturbingly, I saw him respond with all the vulnerable innocence of Forrest Gump when some obvious hustler tried to scam him. I'd say that he had always been -- in earlier years -- quite a bit more skeptical than the average person. All the aggressive and protective features of his personality faded as he got old. It made for a wonderful, affectionate, funny, uncomplaining old guy who everybody loved...right to the end. But he sure lost his street savvy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseexactly. Old people love Brokaw ("Greatest Generation," etc.).
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