The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Newtmania: Not Happening

Posted on | May 17, 2011 | 22 Comments

Ed Morrissey writes up a blogger conference call that Newt Gingrich held today, as does Philip Klein at the Examiner:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, speaking on a Tuesday conference call held to respond to his controversial comments about Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, said that he didn’t go into his interview with NBC’s David Gregory “hostile enough” and should have pushed back more forcefully against the “gotcha” questions the host asked.
But he argued that this controversy, which many have argued spells the end of his candidacy, will be fixed in a matter of days, and he likened his experiences to Ronald Reagan’s.
“Every once and awhile there’s going to be a problem, and you gotta spend three or four days fixing it,” he said. “If you go back and look at Ronald Reagan’s record, the opening week of the campaign in Sept. 1980, they didn’t have a very good week. And they had to go back and fix it. This happens occasionally. The trick is to relax, look at it, try to figure out what happened, and keep moving.”
Gingrich said he should have been better prepared for the “adversarial nature” of “Meet the Press.”
“I didn’t go in there quite hostile enough, because it didn’t occur to me going in that you’d have a series of setups,” Gingrich said. “This wasn’t me randomly saying things. These were very deliberate efforts to pick fights.”

Newt didn’t realize David Gregory was going to play “gotcha”? Hello? But the comparison with Reagan is a bit much. The 24/7 New Media environment — including cable TV, talk radio and the blogosphere — didn’t exist in 1980. 

Does the acronym WCFCYA mean anything to you?

This is where Newt’s long, long political record works against him. Leave aside the ex-wives and the half-million-dollar Tiffany’s account. That’s just a distraction. The fact is, Newt has a record to defend, he’s opined on a variety of topics during TV appearances and speeches, and his difficulty in meeting Gregory’s “gotcha” attacks exposes that vulnerability. And if he thinks he can bamboozle Republican voters, he’ll get more of what he got in the ”Rebuke in Dubuque“:


For me, of course, it’s personal. I was there in the ballroom at the Hotel Saranac on Nov. 3, 2009, when Doug Hoffman gave his concession speech. Lot of red-rimmed eyes in the crowd there that night. But there is no crying in journalism . . .

Still, I haven’t forgotten. Michelle Malkin has not forgotten. There are lots of us who remember that Newt suppored Dede Scozzafava against the Tea Party movement’s first national hero.

Newt will not win the Republican nomination. Not while I live and breathe. Hit the freaking tip jar.

UPDATE: Karen Martin of the Spartanburg Tea Party recalls the Hoffman campaign:

I sent him money, I called his campaign office and talked to his staffers, I was on his email list. It was my first realization that from that moment on … NO politics were local. What happened in that district “somewhere in NY” could potentially mark a point in time when the tide turned and the Every Man could make a significant impact.
And I remember how enraged I was when Newt Gingrich mocked us. Tried to destroy Doug’s candidacy. Endorsed and praised and supported that abomination of a women. Not once. Not a couple of times. For weeks. And he … was “on our side.”

As I have argued, the Hoffman campaign actually did “mark a point in time when the tide turned.” That’s why, on Election Night 2010, in Boca Raton, Florida, I walked outside of Allen West’s victory party and placed a call to Doug Hoffman.

Those of us who were involved in the NY-23 — and that includes a lot of our blog readers here who gave money to Hoffman — knew we were in the middle of a crucial moment. And the fact that Hoffman lost didn’t change that. What was important was the fight, and the fighter who had the guts to tell the clueless GOP establishment to go to hell.

UPDATE II: Had to do this:

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Category: Newt Gingrich

Comments

  • http://thatmrgguy.wordpress.com/ Mike

    Newt neutered himself when he tacitly supported the individual mandate vis a vis Obamacare. Newt should just ride off into the sunset and retire. Stick a fork in him, he”s done.

  • R S McCain

    It’s simple: Presidential campaign = fundraising.

    Let’s say Newt raises $25 million before he quits. And let’s say he only spends $20 million of that. Then what?

    Easy: Transfer your campaign account balance to your PAC. That PAC will then pay a salary (and expenses) for Newt and Mrs. Newt, etc.

    It’s about the money, period.

  • Quartermaster

    I wish you were wrong. But, Tyrell’s evaluation of the man as Speaker tells me you are on the button. Jerry Pournelle knows him personally, and doesn’t think Newt is just out for himself, at least he wasn’t when Jerry knew him, but things change. Personally,  I think Jerry may have misjudged the man.

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  • Anonymous

     It’s possible Dr. P was willing to overlook some of Gingrich’s shortcomings in view of Newt’s full-throated support for SDI.

  • http://ifyouseekpeace.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/richard-wagners-das-rincecycle-at-the-met-sir-bob-of-belvedere-reports/ Ran

    Uh-huh.  He’s going to fix his Dede Scozzi albatros? HillaryCare error? Pallin’ with Pelosi on carbon taxes?  The guy has more than baggage – he’s got freight a few days aren’t going to fix.

    What’s interesting is not so much Newt’s comment, which is vintage Gingrich – but rather the new climate: Fifteen, even ten years ago who would have had enough voice to call him on it?  He would have gotten away with it.

    As of about five years ago, the game had changed wildly.  We have The Other McCain and Malkin and a host of Davids in the rightosphere.  Newt can’t get away with that BS anymore.

    The guy is OVER.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1385852725 Richard Mcenroe

     Newt’s not Reagan.  Newt’s McCain with a deferment.  Can’t learn and won’t listen.

  • Dede Scozzafava

    I want a piece of the action!   

  • Dede Scozzafava

    Newt’s McCain with a deferment and I am his Lindsay Graham! 

  • http://qwertyaltofuori.blogspot.com Red

    Sorry I have to be ‘that person’  but you just had a post on grammatical errors: “Does the acornym WCFCYA mean anything to you?”

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    It’s Dog Track Time. 

  • dr kill

    I find your logic, and that of the commenters to be compelling. newt lost me forever when he didn’t quit when the term limit thing was up back in the 90′s. That he has any voice at all says more about the national GOP than anything I can add. Starve them

  • R S McCain

    Dammit! I hate typos! (Fixed it) 

  • JeffS

    Newt needs to buzz off.  

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  • Anonymous

    “The “process” he refers to is a very delicate one.  He believes the “scale of change” Republicans are proposing for America is “very large, and affects people’s lives in a very intimate way.”  “Gingrich firmly believes such change should not be imposed.”…. “I am concerned with compelling people to go through a radical change that has not been tested,” he said of Ryan’s proposed Medicare reforms.”

    Liberty cannot be imposed it can only be earned and achieved. Liberty has been tested and there is nothing radical about it. Liberty has not been tested and found wanting, it is we who have failed Liberty. We have failed to protect it from all the forces that believe it is an obstacle to Social Justice.

    “He believes that instead of forcibly reconstructing society according to conservative principles, Republicans should “seek an unusual level of authority from the people themselves.”  This would make the changes needed to reform fiscal sanity dramatic, but not radical.  He puts great emphasis on the need for the American people to voluntarily choose every aspect of the future proposed by his party.”

    That is not a viable option. A “free market” can’t be only partially free, a “limited government” cannot be only somewhat limited. The attempt to have the benefits of a free market economy, while at the same time using “crony capitalism” to gather power and affect social policy leads to a “Crony Capitalist Command Economy” with a free market veneer. This is the path we have taken over the last century. I submit that whether Seniors or anyone else for that matter like it or not radical change is coming within the decade. Radical or not isn’t ours to choose, our choice is between epic restoration of Liberty and independence or epic fail.
    The above Newt Quotes are from
     
    Newt Gingrich and the Imposition Of Liberty
    In search of an “unusual level of authority” from the people.
    by  John Hayward
    http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=John+Hayward

  • http://thegunsreport.com Editor

    I’m with Bob.  Here’s the fork, Mike.

    As a thinker and writer, Newt was totally out-flanked by the likes of Mark Levin (in print) and nearly the entire internet Rightosphere. Ten years ago Newt could have said what he said and gotten away with it.

    The Scuzzi Affair in NY-23 was his final undoing.

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    And I thought it was when he planted his ass next to Nancy Pelosi on that couch.. 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_72CXMYWR2356GL6KJVU47OMJFA Right Klik

     Thanks for the reminder.  I, too, fought for Hoffman as hard as I could. I wanted to forgive Ging, I had hoped he would stimulate interesting points during the GOP debates.  Now I think the sooner he exits the better. 

  • http://qwertyaltofuori.blogspot.com Red

    I’ve been involved in typesetting and printing for the past 8 years so typos and the like ‘find’ me. It can’t be helped::shrugs::
    Ever need a proofreader, will work for Ferrero Roche ;-D

  • Dan

    Come on Rob, ——– Newt doesn’t need the money.

    He’s well situated financially, and his fictional works have been well received, which means he can continually churn those out for years to come.

    And by the by, ——— why haven’t you given a thought to a  political thriller, kind of like “The SPIKE,” written by de Borchgrave and Moss; I’m sure you could do better than a Joel Rosenberg or a Vince Flynn, {have you any real doubt you could come up with something better than the likes of them?}. 

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