However, I take a long view, as you do towards the end of your comment. There are so many ups and downs ahead of us that are unpredictable. Gingrich was always very strong in SC (as I’ve been pointing out for quite some time), with the exception of just a couple of post-Iowa weeks. The SC electorate is tailor-made for him. The primaries are a marathon, not a sprint.

I expect people to be very emotional this year when they vote, however. This favors Gingrich and not Romney. That’s just the way it is.

For me, I was open-minded about Gingrich till the Bain thing. There are turning points for me in trusting someone, and after that it’s very hard to earn my trust back. I had a turning point with Obama during the 2008 season, and that was when he went back on his word about public campaign financing, and made excuses and said, “Ooo, the mean old Republicans made me do it.” It was then that I realized who and what he was, and I’ve never looked back with him.

Not that I was ever planning to vote for him anyway. But I realized the depth of his opportunistic hypocrisy, and the fact that not many people were going to call him on it.

That’s what you think American is in need of now? ANOTHER monster?

We’re really in trouble with people who think like this. I fully understand the pent up anger and resentment, but I would hope people would be thinking with their brains after people so clearly did not do that in 2008.

When people vote for someone because of an entertaining debate and overblown rehetoric and not considering who the candidates really are (as Newt would tell you: history is the best predictor!) and what they have accomplished and what their real strengths and weaknesses are (not just from what THEY tell you, or how the MSM defines them, but through self-edification of some kind), they are dancing down exactly the same path as all those dupes in ’08.

I found it curious that almost weekly, people are either disgusted by Gingrich, or in love with him and his ups and downs evidence that. But 2 debates in one week with outrageous rhetoric and complete denial of his own history, seems folks in SC and elsewhere can’t get enough. Hopefully that will wear off.

I actually was seriously considering Newt despite his very checkered history. I was willing to give the man benefit of the doubt and believe he had changed, he was a positive person who was going to run a positive campaign, etc. Until Iowa. When a few negative ads exposing Gingrich’s “mistakes” from the past — all well known and documented, and he turned into the ugly, vindictive and vengeful man he had always been — despite a decade of carefully laying groundwork for a comeback as a changed man. As the weeks have gone by, I’ve been more and more repulsed. As anti-Obama as I am — I loathe the man and what he has done and don’t want to even think about what he’d like to do if he has another 4 years — if Newt became the candidate, I’d have a really serious problem. I was sure I was an Anybody-But-Obama person. But what is the point if we’re just exchanging one morally-challenged calculating power-hungry monster for another? Many are willing to let their anger and unhappiness guide them. That’s their choice. And we’ll all have to live with the result. There is no ideal candidate because we all have different notions of what would be ideal.

Well, long primary season ahead (tho’ time does fly). I’ll try to cork the panic which welled up in me as I watched what happened in 5 days. 5 short days. And I’ll pray that voters will have a thorough understanding of who each candidate is. (And maybe that the “Newt” pendulum will swing back to where it was last Sunday!)
And then democracy will take over.

Also, another type of poll that means something, I believe, even at this early point in time, is if a candidate who is already well-known already has very high unfavorables. Gingrich’s unfavorables are way higher than those of either Obama or Romney. If you don’t think that has some meaning for an election, I think you’re living in a dream.

Harold: I read the article. I don’t see that your comment has any relevance to Gingrich vs. Romney. “High-beta” does NOT mean Newt has a “high” chance of winning big. It means that the high-beta candidate could win (and even win big), whereas the writer thinks a low-beta candidate cannot. He makes it clear that neither a high beta nor a low-beta candidate has a high chance of winning against an incumbent at all, and when the high-beta candidate loses, they lose big.

What’s more, I read his definition of high beta and low beta, and it seems that in this case neither candidate would be low beta, despite the fact that he characterizes Romney that way. Neither Romney nor Gingrich are obvious leaders of the party. Neither of them was the nominee last time (that would be McCain), the most low beta choice of all. It is Gingrich who is the Washington DC insider and career politician, not Romney. If anyone’s the high beta choice it would be Romney, the on most of the criteria the author is using to describe high beta.

I actually think the article is a poor one. The author’s definition or high beta vs. low is very strange and difficult to apply, unless you have the obvious situation of a repeat nominee (Romney certainly isn’t; he did rather poorly in the 2008 primaries). The author ignores things such as the fact that Eisenhower was an extremely popular president that virtually no one could have defeated, high or low beta. By the way, even though Stevenson had been nominated before, he was a highly unconventional candidate both in ’52 and ’56, and “remained popular with a core of liberal Democrats but held no office and had no real base.” Not sure what’s so low-beta and unrisky about that—he represented an extreme wing of the party. Also, Clinton, according to the author, was the high-beta candidate. But he ran as a political moderate—very moderate, in fact. That was his whole shtick, policy-wise.
The article makes very little sense to me.

When monster N beats Monster O = RENAISSANCE of this great NATION. One fight at a time …

WE NEED A MONSTER TO BEAT A MONSTER:
VOTE NEWT !!!

That can be true….in some cases. It is not in Newt Gingrich’s case. His long list of past transgressions are an integral part of both his personal and professional life.

Many people on the Right, temporarily “suspend belief” and they are getting behind Newt now. Today. But what of tomorrow. Newt’s vote-getting inconsistency is due to these factors and when they are publicized by opponents — even in negative ads (which is not saying they are wrong even though Newt would have voters believe they are) he fizzles. When he is able to successfully divert attention from his own history, he rises in the polls. Should he become the candidate, if you imagine the Obama mchine will hit and then drop the matter,, think again. And they will hurt him. And they will be speaking from the bully pulpit. Which will be echoed everywhere over and over by the MSM. Even tho’ both men have deep character flaws, there’s only one that will be pounded into the public’s consciousness day in and day out — and that has results.

Newt Gingrich cannot beat Barad Obama. And he will never come close to a war chest that comes close to Obama’s. The obscene amounts of money spent by political candidates today, from local to state and federal elections is a travesty — but it does matter and it does buy influence over voters.

@ T–
” The only way to avoid paying that tax is to give it ALL away. And unlike income tax, all one does with the estate tax is avoid paying it, it doesn’t generate the income tax refund that a deductible charitable donation does.”

Such people DO give most of it away. They give away much during their lifetimes, and at some point in their later years, many spend more on themselves figuring that what they do spend is almost 1/2 price as that portion which otherwise would go to the govt. And when they die, they still have considerable estates after their deaths most of which goes into their foundation. But they set up these foundations usually much earlier both to give away money for altruistic reasons, tax reasons, and estate planning as well as to apply their money as they see fit as opposed to what the govt. would do with it.

And the fact remains that Gingrich as late as yesterday in an interview explained they published their one tax return enable the public “to see all the good things he and Callista do for others. He does it less as a good faith effort than as a carefully strategized campaign calculation.

You’re free to stand by your comments, as am I to stand by mine. We agree to disagree. In the end, however, what will be most important is the voters’ impressions.

I’ve been more of a lurker lately than a commenter.

Been here for years as my primary visited blog but it does take a bit more to post not lurk.

We need to see this passion.

Pat Cadell made the point that he should point out that Obama gutted GM and closed dealers unemploying many people to make GM stronger when describing what companies must do when making executive decisions such as Bain’s company did.

Pat Caddell made brilliant points and I wonder WHY CAN’T Romney make poignant points?

Lady Rothschild was clear that Newt cannot beat Obama.

She described a situation where the Independents (she may be wrong) are at 39%, conseratives are at 37% and she went on to say that we are a center right nation.

Look people – I know her history and her support for Hillary Clinton.

But you have to listen to people and evaluate comments based on merits. Lynn’ comments had merit.

We are a center-right nation.

But she said even in spite of being a center right nation Newt cannot beat Obama and listed the problems (the ceiling)