BREAKING: Newt Gingrich Will End Pathetic Shuffling Zombie Campaign

Posted on | April 25, 2012 | 30 Comments

Seems like just the other day “sources close to the campaign” were saying Newt would go all the way to Tampa, but now — probably just about the time their paychecks started bouncing — “two sources close to Gingrich tell CNN” otherwise.

UPDATE: While everybody’s busy scripting their Downfall video parodies, here are more details from inside the bunker:

Newt Gingrich plans to formally leave the Republican presidential race next Tuesday, senior campaign aides told Fox News, after struggling for months to turn around his sagging bid for the White House. . . .
Gingrich’s exit is a stark turnaround from his public posture just a few months back, when in December he confidently declared following his rise in national polls that [he was] “going to be the nominee.”

Oct. 18: “Second look at Gingrich?” Yeah, that was brilliant. Also, “campaign insiders” talking about a “road forward” with a campaign that was more than $4 million in debt? Genuises!

UPDATE II: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

Last night provided a moment to Newt Gingrich that Rick Santorum managed to avoid. Santorum withdrew before a potentially embarrassing loss in Pennsylvania, keeping his credibility intact after a surprisingly successful run . . . Gingrich couldn’t take the hint and insisted that the race would change now that he had Romney all to himself.

Am I the only one who remembers the Feb. 4 Vegas press conference?

Gingrich then explained that his senior staff had “frankly spent the last four days laying out a campaign for the next four months” — the strategy, Gingrich said, would net him an equal amount of delegates as Mitt Romney by the April 3 Texas primary.

Unfortunately, the overpaid idiots on Gingrich’s “senior staff” had failed to check the date: Because of court hassles over a redistricting fight, everybody in Texas already knew their primary would be postponed. Nevertheless, according to his own campaign’s delegate calculus — which they rolled out with a flourish after Gingrich’s debacle in the Nevada caucuses — Newt’s “path to the nomination” became null and void on Super Tuesday, March 6, when he lost Tennessee and Oklahoma.

After Gingrich lost Alabama and Mississippi on March 13, anybody with an IQ above room temperature could see it was over. Yet even on the eve of the March 24 Louisiana primary, Gingrich and his campaign entourage were still rolling around in a 10-car motorcade.

What part of “stayed too long at the dance” was not already obvious? And when Newt himself admitted April 8 that his campaign was in debt to the tune of $4 million . . . Hell, who could take seriously any talk of a “road forward” from there?

UPDATE III: Since we’re strolling down Memory Lane here, let’s remember that Gingrich’s campaign imploded on the launch pad back in June, after it was discovered that the candidate and his third wife were cruising the Aegean.

That luxury vacation was one Newt and Calista “insisted upon taking against the advice of his top political staff,” a move that followed “one of the most diastrous campaign launches in recent memory,” as the Washington Post put it. That came after the horrible embarrassment over Gingrich’s line of credit at Tiffany:

Gingrich misunderstood the financial disclosure rules for presidential candidates and mistakenly believed it would never have to become public, according to three current and former campaign advisers.

How the hell can a campaign expect hard-working people to donate $25 or $50 or to do volunteer work when the candidate is living large like that? And when it was subsequently revealed that Gingrich had collected big money from Freddie Mac — one of the major villains in the mortgage bubble — you might have thought people would have wised up to the bogusness of Newt’s rhetoric. Yet he managed to keep the hustle going all the way to April, because some folks refused to admit that they’d been scammed.

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Category: Election 2012, Newt Gingrich

Comments

30 Responses to “BREAKING: Newt Gingrich Will End Pathetic Shuffling Zombie Campaign”

Lisa Graas
April 25th, 2012 @ 11:01 am

Yup. http://youtu.be/Joo90ZWrUkU
Cyndy H
April 25th, 2012 @ 11:14 am

And we can thank Winning the Future for funding his shuffle to stop Santorum from racing past Romney. http://bit.ly/IkKPFu
Gingrich Gets Stomped by 30 Points in Delaware; Fourth in Pennsylvania : The Other McCain
April 25th, 2012 @ 11:23 am

[…] “campaign insiders” still getting paid?UPDATE II: Guess the checks started bouncing: It’s finally over.Category: Connecticut, Delaware, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, New York, Newt Gingrich, Pennsylvania, […]
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 11:40 am

I knew he would. The only reason he denied it last night was to keep from discouraging voters in Delaware, like if he could have won there it would have made some kind of difference.
demsaresatanic
April 25th, 2012 @ 12:17 pm

Newt has acted like a petulant brat throughout the last few weeks. He sould have dropped out long ago — about the same time as that fool Rick Perry did. These primaries are entirely too long. Reform is needed at the RNC level. 6 months for a primary season is outrageous!
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 1:15 pm

The main thing they need to do is close all primaries, leave them for GOP voters only. That way if somebody decides to want to vote in our primaries badly enough to change parties, they are more than likely sincere and genuinely wanting the best candidate.
Dave R
April 25th, 2012 @ 1:21 pm

And get rid of caucuses and non-binding events, which are silly and prone to being manipulated by fringe candidates.
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 1:28 pm

Non-binding events, I’ll agree with you there, but I’m fine with the caucuses, in fact I wish they had one in Kentucky. Caucus goers tend to be better informed than the average primary voter. Unfortunately, Kentucky’s primary is so late in the season, it really wouldn’t make much sense to have a caucus system unless they did move it up, because usually by that time most candidates have little reason to devote the time and resources it takes to win a caucus.
Finrod Felagund
April 25th, 2012 @ 1:35 pm

For all your denigration of Newt’s campaign, he collected more delegates than Perry, Bachmann, Huntsman, and Pawlenty combined.
Newt To Drop Out: Score Another Victory For Nemesis « The Camp Of The Saints
April 25th, 2012 @ 1:36 pm

[…] He’s got all the details and links here, including a stroll down memory lane when Newton first began stepping in it last year [Memories…/Like the folds in my-y flab….]. Also, check out Stacy’s reporting on last night’s primaries here. […]
Adjoran
April 25th, 2012 @ 1:37 pm

There is no way to do that. It’s a matter of state laws whether or not to register by party and, if the state pays any part of the cost of primaries, how they should be run.
Adjoran
April 25th, 2012 @ 2:01 pm

Speaking of delegates, of the first four states “won” by Santorum, he may emerge with the most delegates from Colorado. Paul has clearly outmaneuvered him in Iowa, and will have the most delegates from those caucuses, and seems to have turned the tables on Romney in Minnesota, but that may not be final yet. Missouri is still in the process, but Romney and Paul forces have been cooperating to throw their support to each other, whoever is stronger in a given county, and the smart money is they may both end up with more delegates than Santorum.

When the delegates not awarded by the primaries in Louisiana and Alabama are awarded, Romney will probably control both of those delegations, too.

Santorum will likely be able to hold onto the Kansas delegation.

The lack of an organization and ground game matters. Ain’t I done told you so?
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 2:15 pm

But-but-but-but-it’s not over yet. Santorum might still win Kentucky, if conservatives just stick together and agree to support him. He might win just enough to keep Romney ten or twenty votes under that magic 1144 number he needs to clinch the nomination. Then conservatives can declare a brokered convention, and when that happens, there will be a food floor fight. Then suddenly they’ll realize Rick is the man for the job after all. Every single one of Paul and Gingrich’s delegates will go to Rick. Then Romney’s delegates will start peeling away from him one by one, until Rick emerges triumphant.

People will say, how could I have been so blind to not support Rick Santorum in the primaries when I had the chance? Then its on to November and victory. Then Mitt will renounce Mormonism and convert to Catholicism, after which Rick will name him Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce. After that he’ll name Newt Secretary of Education and order him to revive No Child Left Behind, this time as a federally funded mandate.
Mike Rogers
April 25th, 2012 @ 2:56 pm

Drops out, will endorse Mittens. It’s official:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577365781657105156.html
McGehee
April 25th, 2012 @ 2:58 pm

The parties should be solely responsible for their own nominating processes.

Insert such expletives between “own” and “nominating” above as desired. I intend all of them.
richard mcenroe
April 25th, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

I believe I told you since Newt Day 1. And was roundly excoriated by Gingrinches. Double or nothing on how soon Governor Whitman McCain screws you over?
alwaysfiredup
April 25th, 2012 @ 3:11 pm

Terrifically bitter, Stacy. Congrats. Newt would have been a better choice than Romney. And his dropping out earlier would not have led to a Santorum victory, that man was quite simply unelectable. The only reason he rallied in the first place is that the Romneyites pushed the SoCons his way, knowing Santorum could never win the primary. Anything Jen Rubin says, believe the opposite.

But tell yourself whatever makes you sleep better.
TR
April 25th, 2012 @ 3:41 pm

Alwaysfiredup,
I agree with you on the RSM bitternes (unneeded and unprofessional) and the provably wrong assumption that Newt was ‘standing in the way’ of Rick.
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 3:58 pm

Also Paul, Cain, Johnson, Roehmer, and Karger. All totaled, between ten and twenty delegates. Come on, Newt was finished the second Santorum beat him in Alabama and Mississippi, with Louisiana being the icing on the cake., just as surely as Santorum himself was out of contention the second he lost Ohio. There’s no need in trying to pretend otherwise. This is the year of the Romneylan.
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April 25th, 2012 @ 4:00 pm

[…] heating up, what with Rick Santorum quitting a couple weeks ago, and Newt Gingrich making it semi-official that he’s getting out; it’s Romney vs. Obama, Wall Street stiff vs. the best thing […]
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 4:10 pm

Its been demonstrated countless times that the Gingrich voters split almost evenly between Santorum and Romney as a second choice, so Gingrich dropping out would have made no difference at all.

The only exceptions were in some Southern states, where Gingrich voters did split heavily towards Santorum as a second choice. But Santorum won those states anyway, except for Georgia and South Carolina. And in South Carolina, Romney would have definitively won if Gingrich had dropped out by then.

So if Gingrich hurt anybody, it was Romney, just by preventing Romney from winning South Carolina. If Romney had won that state, the Romney juggernaut would have carried four of the first five states and probably would have steamrolled to a commanding and insurmountable delegate total way before the convention.

Gingrich deserves just as much credit as Santorum for making Romney work hard for his victories, whether the Gingrich haters want to admit it or not.
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April 25th, 2012 @ 5:33 pm

[…] Readers: It looks like Romney has become the “presumptive nominee” and Tea Party types, PUMAs, independent conservatives, and all other civil-liberty embracing […]
Tennwriter
April 25th, 2012 @ 6:05 pm

Unlikely true, but better than the alt reality where Romney gets saturation bombed to component atoms by the MSM and Obama, and Obama wins the next cycle, and then the RINOS blame the Conservatives yet again for their own failures.

You gotta ask yourself, why cheer for Mitt?
ThePaganTemple
April 25th, 2012 @ 6:30 pm

Mitt has a lot of good qualities, just like all the others had their share of bad qualities. He’s going to be the nominee. It’s going to be Romney versus Obama. The question is, why NOT cheer for Mitt?
Charles
April 25th, 2012 @ 6:46 pm

Newt Gingrich has now reached the point where having failed to surrender at the Virginia Courthouse where he didn’t even get on the ballot we’ll probably next catch him sneaking to Florida through Georgia in a woman’s dress. His campaign debts being about as worthless as confederate bank notes will start showing up on eBay as collectors items.
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April 25th, 2012 @ 8:36 pm

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TR
April 25th, 2012 @ 9:31 pm

Stacy has borrowed extensively from The Atlantic (or vice versa) http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/mitt-romneys-debt-to-newt-gingrich/256358/

Since none of us probably read “Molly Ball” no one would guess that RSM might as well be a stringer for one of the most left wing rags in the country given the simlitude of their content and style.
Kryon77
April 25th, 2012 @ 10:06 pm

It’s this combination of righteousness and irrational hatred toward Gingrich that helped to bring us to the state where we are forced to rally around a cipher with a lust for power, Romney, because he’s likely slightly better than the left-wing ideologue Obama. This, from the same cerebrally challenged individual who rallied for many, many months behind Herman Cain, and remained steadfast in his loyalty when it emerged that Cain was utterly clueless on issues that high-school kids know about, and could not find Libya on a map, or remember there was a revolt there.

Romney if elected, will – at best – “manage the decline,” as Newt said. And Cain fan-boy RSM did his part to bring about this sad state of affairs.
ThePaganTemple
April 26th, 2012 @ 11:34 am

Now do you really think Stacy has that much influence? He would like to have, and he does maybe have a little when things are going good for his candidates. But when his candidates start to implode, no one listens to him. And its the same with Newt. He didn’t turn anyone against Newt that wasn’t already against him. So give poor Stacy a break and quit feeding his ego.
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May 2nd, 2012 @ 12:16 pm

[…] 10, Gingrich had already made himself a ridiculous laughingstock, so that the continuance of his pathetic shuffling zombie campaign resulted in his final humiliation in Delaware.Wait, did I say “final humiliation”? […]