New Hampshire's largest newspaper, the Union Leader, endorsed former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as their favorite 2012-Republican-presidential-nominee wannabee in their Sunday editorial today.
Not sure they carry much weight anymore, but this is telling. The emphasis is mine:
The front page one editorial, signed by publisher Joseph W. McQuaid, suggested that the only state-wide newspaper in New Hampshire was ready to again assert itself as a player in the GOP primary.
"We don't have to agree with them on every issue," the newspaper wrote in an editorial that ran across the width of the front page. "We would rather back someone with whom we may sometimes disagree than one who tells us what he thinks we want to hear."
But not surprisingly, Mitt Romney still leads the pack. Still waiting for Jon Huntsman to surge...
GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich called child labor laws “truly stupid” at a Friday appearance at Harvard University, saying that he would propose extraordinarily radical changes that would fundamentally transform the culture of poverty.
Speaking at the John F. Kennedy school, Gingrich said that children in the poorest neighborhoods are “trapped in child laws” that prevent them from earning money.
“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school,” Gingrich said according to a CNN video. “The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising. Get any job that teaches you to show up on Monday. Get any job that teaches you to stay all day, even if you’re having a fight with your girlfriend.”
Not a flub. A true belief. A genuine public policy stance. Which is why Newt will never be President.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has roared into the lead of the Republican nominating race, brushing off concerns about his work for a troubled housing company, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
Twenty-four percent of registered Republican voters would support the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives if the contest were held now, an increase of 8 percentage points from roughly a week ago, according to the poll, which was conducted on November 18-19.
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has stayed near the top of most polls, garnered support from 22 percent of Republicans, slumping 6 percentage points from the last survey conducted on November 10-11 and ending up essentially tied with Gingrich.
From the man who said this, at yesterday’s Thanksgiving Family Forum, yet another Republican-Presidential-nominee-wannabe debate in Iowa when asked if there is a definition for the term “moral war”:
First of all, as Congressman Paul pointed out, in Christian theology there is a clear development of the concept of the just war. Which people like Augustine had to develop because they saw the rise of Pagans that were actually threatening the very survival of their country. In fact, Augustine is buried in Italy because his body was taken out of North Africa when the Christians lost North Africa. So then, these things become very real.
So then, a war is moral when it is about defending Christianity against forces that threaten the very survival of a country? Because after all, as the good professor said, these things can become very real…
And it is a well-known fact that the former Speaker of the House is very concerned with paganism. Evidently, we are surrounded by paganism, per Newt.
So, I guess the (long, long, long) moral war has begun.
Complete video of the Thanksgiving Family Forum here. Long and painful. But very real.
So, is there a 2012-Republican-Presidential-Nominee-Wannabe left, to surge?
Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Newt Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in consulting fees from two contracts with mortgage company Freddie Mac, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.
The total amount is significantly larger than the $300,000 payment from Freddie Mac that Gingrich was asked about during a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 9 sponsored by CNBC, and more than was disclosed in the middle of congressional investigations into the housing industry collapse.
Gingrich’s business relationship with Freddie Mac spanned a period of eight years. When asked at the debate what he did to earn a $300,000 payment in 2006, the former speaker said he “offered them advice on precisely what they didn’t do,” and warned the company that its lending practices were “insane.” Former Freddie Mac executives who worked with Gingrich dispute that account.
Because after all, it does have to be anyone-but-Romney.
I guess Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich did not have a very good day yesterday. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memosummarizes it well:
I was traveling and in meetings most of the day. So unlike most every other day, I was almost totally off the news grid. I caught a few headlines here and there on my iPhone about the unfolding Newt implosion. But, my God, I couldn't quite grasp the scope until I got back to my hotel room and started reading our stories. And now it comes out that this afternoon Newt was compelled to personally call Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to apologize for questioning and criticizing Ryan's Medicare phase-out plan. His spokesman publicly stated that Newt apologized. Publicly. On the record. Voluntarily.
I mean, wow. Watching TV just now, I see that South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) is now lashing out at Gingrich as some sort of GOP health care policy traitor.
What's breathtaking about this isn't just the reckless ridiculousness. That's Newt's trademark. But I can only imagine Newt's mortification. This is a man of no little ego. Whatever else you want to say about Gingrich, he is a genuinely historic figure in the history of American politics. And he's called on the carpet and has to apologize to these newcomers who couldn't have been out of their 20s when he was in his early 90s heyday?
I can only imagine.
And a fabulous take last night from Rachel Maddow, which shows that as much as anything, it is his reaction to the uproar which is doing him in as much as the attack itself. Blaming the liberal media? Really.
So, what is this all about? That you can't be an "ideas" guy in the Republican party, because after all to intellectualize public policy issues inevitably means stepping on toes? Is it about Newt's cluelessness? Simply about any Republican candidate needing to tow a particular party line, at any given moment?
This probably is indeed the nail in Newt's coffin. But frankly, he didn't have a shot to begin with. So there.
Lots of talk about Newt Gingrich, coming off his formal declaration as a candidate for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination. Newt Gingrich, the man with the ideas.
Still, Gingrich brings to the race an unparalleled record in his party as someone who has remained in the forefront of the public policy debate over a span of decades. If he has lacked discipline in other areas, the one consistency in his public career is a devotion to the intersection of ideas and politics. He has made himself a force in whatever role he has played: as a backbencher, as House leader, and for more than a decade as a politician without office or official portfolio.
Through intellect and ambition, Gingrich has kept himself in the middle of public policy debates on health care, education, energy and foreign affairs. “Newt’s been the Republican Party’s main idea man for close to a generation,” said Terry Holt, a Republican strategist who closely observed Gingrich as speaker. “This is a guy who brings unlimited energy and creative thinking to a race that needs new ideas.”
And I woke up to Mara Liasson telling me much that same, on NPR's Morning Edition Sunday this weekend:
Newt Gingrich is an intellectual force in the party. He has the ability to set the terms of the debate, although there are questions about whether he has the discipline for this kind of campaign. And there're questions about whether his personal life and his three marriages will hurt him in his bid. But he certainly is an idea machine and I think that's the role he will play.
Well, by now it's all over the press that the Former Speaker of the House is having a little bit of trouble articulating his ideas about health care reform. First he goes on NBC's Meet the Press and distanced himself from a House GOP plan to make cuts to Medicare, calling it “too big a jump" for the American people.
Then, the backtracking. After a lot of criticism from fellow Republicans.
After Gingrich criticized the plan during his appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, his spokesman Rick Tyler attempted to clarify his remarks, saying there is "little daylight" between Gingrich and Ryan when it comes to Medicare reform.
"Newt would fully support Ryan if it were not compulsory," Tyler told the Weekly Standard. "We need to design a better system that people will voluntarily move to. That is a major difference in design but not substance."
Something that did not get a lot of press, was Newt Gingrich's interview this last Sunday with Jorge Ramos on his Univision show Al Punto. Read the interview. It's interesting. He certainly intellectualizes in some areas -- particularly in talking about comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act -- while yet coming short of his own ideas. But, he does seem to have one idea down. Giving undocumented immigrants a status short of legal citizenship. The emphasis is mine:
First, somebody who’s been here 20 years, somebody who’s been here 20 years and is married and has three kids and has been paying taxes and lived a totally peaceful life and is a citizen – but by the way they came here 20 years ago outside the law. We got to find the way to routinize and get them in the law without necessarily getting them on a path to citizenship. Now there ought to be a way to do that. And one of the things I’m looking at, and this may come as a surprise to you, is in World War II we had a selective service board where every local community could apply common sense to the draft process. We may want to think about a citizen board that can actually look at things and decide, is this a person that came in two months ago and doesn’t nearly have any ties here? Or is this a person who clearly is integrated into the society but unfortunately has been undocumented, therefore, we have to rethink how we are approaching them.
Gives "separate but equal" a new meaning.
In reality, there is a big difference between being an intellectual, and actually having ideas. Practical ideas. Ideas that can implemented. Particularly ideas that can have an impact in the public policy arena. Newt Gingrich is a trained academic. A PhD in history and former college professor. And as such, he's not too bad at tearing apart other people's ideas. Deconstructing the ideas of others. Being a public intellectual, of sorts. Time will tell whether he can formulate and articulate his own ideas, particularly public policy imperatives. And whether they can hold through a Presidential nomination campaign, where he is sure to get sliced and diced by the Republican opposition -- particularly when he is perceived of as not towing the party line.
