…till tomorrow’s over and Florida is done. In fact, I can’t wait till the nominee is in the bag. And then the election can’t come soon enough.
Maybe I’ve just gotten wimpier as I’ve gotten older, but this really did seem like one of the more depressing campaigns right from the start, when the field was first set and the most promising candidates (IMHO) weren’t in it. Now it’s gone from merely depressing to viciously depressing. Even on this blog, the comments section has never seemed so full of anguish and rage, and a more-than-usual dose of misinformation and misunderstanding. I think it’s just a symptom of the difficult situation the nation is in.
And yet, compared to so many earlier troubled times, this is a piece of cake. The ones that come to mind right off the bat are—oh, little things like the Civil War, the Great Depression, and WWII—especially its early days. Even in my own lifetime the 60s were pretty bad: riots, assassinations, generational conflict of a fairly intense kind.
Come to think of it, maybe I really have turned into a wimp. Because we’ve weathered much worse storms, haven’t we?
…[I]t seems unwise for Gingrich to play the character card. Throughout his campaign, the subtext of Gingrich’s pitch is that his personal baggage ”” all of which redounds to character ”” is irrelevant in a campaign where ideology and fighting temperament matter most. As the Rasmussen polls showed the last couple of weeks, Gingrich scores very low on the character questions even among the Republican base. Even in a poll where Gingrich led nationally, he came in dead last in the current roster of four contenders for the Republican nomination on character ”” even below “Not Sure.”
Why would Gingrich pick a fight on the issue of character? Granted, he’s not talking about things like faithfulness to a wife vs. philandering, but even on the issue of campaign “lies” his own are pretty glaring.
Gingrich should play to his own strengths, not his weaknesses. He seemed to understand that at the beginning, but now he’s lost all focus in his rage.
The general perception has been that Gingrich’s major strength is as a fighter. And to give him his props, there’s no question that he has been, both in the sense of general pugnaciousness and of specific battles he fought when Speaker. He stood up not only to Democrats in the House and to President Clinton, but sometimes to those in his own party—although in the end they prevailed and successfully pressured him to resign.
And yet it’s a paradox that, as a campaigner, Gingrich actually didn’t have to use those combat skills very often. He ran in a conservative district in which the only real question at the outset (1974) was whether the public would choose a conservative Democrat (20-year incumbent Jack Flynt) or a conservative Republican (Gingrich). They chose the Democrat, and then they chose him again in 1976 by an even greater margin, although compared to his scarce Republican predecessors (Flynt had often run unopposed) Gingrich did pretty well.
But in 1978 Gingrich got lucky; Flynt finally retired and Newt won. After that, Gingrich was an incumbent member of the House from a South that was increasingly Republican, and from a district that was Republican as well. He seems to have never faced an election challenge worth mentioning after that except in 1990, when he almost lost again (although I can’t find any background on why that one was more difficult). So, although Gingrich was elected eleven straight times after those first two losses, he may be quite untested in the sense of being unused to tough campaigns. One thing for sure: were he to be nominated, he would be very unused to fighting for a win in a campaign against a liberal incumbent such as Obama, in a national election in which he would have to appeal to someone other than conservatives.
Now you might say Romney is quite untested, too, although to win as a Republican in Massachusetts is always somewhat of a test. But “tough and combative candidate” is not the way Romney has been billed in the first place. The fact that Gingrich is now reduced to sputtering rage at how tough and mean Romney is being to him is just as likely to help Romney as Gingrich right now—perhaps more so. It makes Romney seem to be more of an alpha-male and Gingrich less of one.
Those who criticize Romney often like to say that Romney could never be tough enough to fight Obama. But Romney seems to be standing up to Gingrich rather well and keeping his cool. Gingrich to Romney, not so much. And if Gingrich can’t stand up to Romney, how in the world will he ever stand up to Obama?
[NOTE: Please make sure you watch the video at the end of the post.]
It’s reported that Newt Gingrich is preparing a new and “brutal” anti-Romney ad. Part of it is alleged to go something like this:
“Romney said he has always voted Republican when he had the opportunity.”
“But in the 1992 Massachusetts Primary Romney had the chance to vote for George H.W. Bush or Pat Buchanan, but he voted for a liberal Democrat instead.”
Actually, Romney didn’t say that. What he said was this:
ROMNEY: Just a — just a short clarification. I — I’ve never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot. And — and in my state of Massachusetts, you could register as an independent and go vote in which — either primary happens to be very interesting. And any chance I got to vote against Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy, I took. And so I — I’m…[APPLAUSE}…I have voted — I have always voted for a Republican any time there was a Republican on the ballot.
What’s more, if we want to get really really technical about it (and hey, why not?), there’s this:
When Romney walked into the polling place and was handed a Democratic ballot, it’s true that there was no Republican on it. The Republican ballot was separate. So, by this interpretation, Romney is correct that there was no “Republican on the ballot” that day.
That “liberal Democrat” that Gingrich is talking about was Paul Tsongas, by the way. But more about that later.
As you political junkies probably already know, it’s a not uncommon practice in states with open primaries (where Independents can vote for either party), for fairly partisan people to still register as Independents in order to be able to vote in one primary or another for strategic reasons. By the time the 1992 Massachusetts primary rolled around (it’s usually some time in March), George H.W. Bush was almost undoubtedly going to be the Republican nominee, despite some early challenges from Buchanan. Incumbent President Bush won every single primary handily that year: “Buchanan’s campaign never attracted serious opposition to President Bush” after the very first primary in NH, which was a distant memory by the time Massachusetts had its turn. Although it is technically correct that Romney could have voted for Bush, such a vote would have been essentially meaningless.
So if Romney voted for Tsongas, as he himself has long admitted, could the meaning of his remark during the debate not just be that he voted for a Republican whenever one was on the ballot versus a Democrat? Otherwise, it’s really a tiny and almost meaningless point; for example, I doubt that Romney meant to say he voted in every Republican primary even if the Republican was running completely uncontested!
When there was no real contest in the Republican primary, I’d vote in the Democrat primary, vote for the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for Republican. In the general election…I don’t recall ever once voting for anyone other than a Republican. So, yeah, as an independent, I’ll go in and play in their primary, but I’m a Republican and have been through my life. I was with Young Republicans when I was in college back at Stanford. But a registered independent, so I could vote in either primary.
This whole discussion is kind of like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, isn’t it? So you might ask, why do I (neo-neocon, that is) care about such minutiae? Well, I’m always interested in fact-checking and the history behind the sound bite. But in this case I have an extra interest because the topic is Paul Tsongas, a politician I deeply admired, and whose failure to win the Democratic nomination in 1992 was a bitter disappointment to me.
So, as Lloyd Bentson might say, I remember Paul Tsongas, and if Gingrich does run an ad saying that Tsongas was a “liberal Democrat,” that is in itself a misrepresentation. The nicest thing you could possibly call it would be to characterize it as a purposely misleading half-truth.
…[Romney] voted in the Democratic primary for [Massachusetts’] Paul Tsongas, who was the most liberal person…
If I were given to hyperbole, I’d even say that Gingrich was lying there. But let’s just say that he’s quite mistaken about Paul Tsongas because Paul Tsongas was more conservative than Bill Clinton, the eventual winner. Another person who appeared to have been on that Massachusetts ballot in 1992 was Jerry Brown, certainly not more conservative than Paul Tsongas. In fact, Tsongas was probably the most conservative person in the race that year, at least fiscally.
And I must submit that if I know this about Tsongas, we can safely assume that Newt Gingrich the historian (and political figure in 1992) ought to know it too. While it’s certainly true that Tsongas was a Democrat, and socially liberal (at least by today’s standards), he ran as a pro-business fiscal conservative in 1992 and had long been known for that stance. But don’t take my word for it; read this:
Tsongas was criticized on occasion by opponents as a Reaganomics-style politician, and as being closer to Republicans with regard to such issues.
In a tribute I wrote to Paul Tsongas last summer, I ended with this sentence, “But if [Tsongas] were around today, he’s probably the only Democrat I’d consider voting for again””although I’m not so sure he’d be allowed in the Democratic Party any more.” That’s how conservative the guy was.
So, who’s the greater liar here? You be the judge.
In closing, I’m going to post a video of a talk that that flaming liberal Paul Tsongas gave in 1993, after he lost the 1992 primary race to Clinton, and after Clinton had won the presidency. The election he refers to is the presidential contest of 1992. I don’t know about you, but by the end of this clip I had tears in my eyes:
…which I didn’t watch. I read some of it, and many comments about it as well, and watched some video excerpts.
The consensus seems to be that for the most part Gingrich looked rattled and off his game, and that Romney was more forceful than usual. Paul was Paul (who else would he be?), and Santorum acquitted himself well but not enough to significantly change anything for him.
So I’ll stick to talking about the two dueling frontrunners.
Gingrich’s supporters are drawn to him for many reasons, but chief among them are his belief in and defense of conservative principles (in the political arena, anyway) and his aggressive and skilled debating. “He’s a fighter,” many say approvingly, and he certainly is that. But it’s not just the fact that he’s not afraid to fight that draw them to him, it’s that they see him as a fluid and skilled thinker on his feet, able to give as good as he gets and to win the battle through smart thinking as much as pugnaciousness.
Romney is disliked by his detractors for many reasons as well, but among them are the perception that he has the opposite traits: no core conservative principles, and wimpy and weak. One big fear is that he would not be able to go on the offensive against President Obama, and that could be fatal to the chances of defeating the president in the 2012 election.
Last night’s debate seemed to upend those assumptions—most particularly the latter, the one about aggressiveness. Romney went after Gingrich effectively, and Gingrich looked angry but unfocused and—well, sort of weak. And it didn’t happen just once, but many times.
As for the conservative principles, Gingrich made what I believe was a tactical blunder when he continued to attack Romney from the left, as he had with his Bain criticisms. This time Gingrich’s point was even weaker: Romney’s investments in Fannie and Freddie. Here’s part of that exchange, in case you missed it [emphasis mine]:
[Gingrich speaking]We began digging in after Monday night because frankly I’d had about enough of this. We discovered to our shock, Governor Romney owns shares of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Governor Romney made a million dollars off of selling some of that. Governor Romney owns share ”” has an investment in Goldman Sachs, which is today foreclosing on Floridians.
So maybe Governor Romney in the spirit of openness should tell us how much money he’s made off of how many households that have been foreclosed by his investments? And let’s be clear about that.
(APPLAUSE)
ROMNEY: First of all, my investments are not made by me. My investments for the last 10 years have been in a blind trust, managed by a trustee. Secondly, the investments that they’ve made, we’ve learned about this as we made our financial disclosure, have been in mutual funds and bonds. I don’t own stock in either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. There are bonds that the investor has held through mutual funds. And Mr. Speaker, I know that sounds like an enormous revelation, but have you checked your own investments? You also have investments through mutual funds that also invest in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It goes on, but that moment must have been a rough (and surprising) one for Gingrich, and it was emblematic of what happened during the debate. I monitored the reaction to that remark by looking at comments on some very popular blogs, and one of the things I noticed at that point (and this was among people who are for the most part neither Newt nor Mitt supporters) was that the audience thought that was a moment when Gingrich looked foolish. But that they also thought that his entire “Romney has investments in Fannie and Freddie” approach was stupid. There were a lot of remarks like, “I’ve probably got that stuff in my 401K, too! What are you thinking of, Newt?” (only they said it a bit more colorfully).
Gingrich may think he has a good line of attack on Romney re Fannie and Freddie, as with Bain. He probably thinks he won the Bain battle (although I’m not so sure). But I don’t think he’ll win this one, and not just because he himself is invested in Fannie and Freddie and doesn’t seem aware of it (although that made Romney’s team look sharp and Gingrich look very foolish, and Newt’s only real defense seemed to be that he’s got less money in there than Romney does).
The larger point is that when Newt attacks from the left it undermines his claim to have impeccable conservative credentials, and puts Romney in the position of defending the conservative point of view. It may not hurt Newt with his most fervent supporters, perhaps, who are willing to overlook a few slip-ups in the heat of battle, because they believe they know his heart is in the right—and conservative—place, and has been for a long time. I’m speaking of the other voters who are looking at the candidates and trying to evaluate them in the here and now.
…writes Jessica Grose in response to mega-popular mommy-blogger “Dooce’s” announced separation from her husband of ten years.
And I would add, “including the two spouses.”
It sounds facetious and it is, but underneath it’s really not. I’ve looked at marriage and divorce from so many perspectives and for so many years: as student lawyer for a legal services clinic serving indigent clients (boy, now that was a long time ago), friend and relative (both observer and confidante), student of relationships, couples counselor, couples therapy consumer, divorced woman after 31 years of marriage, dater of divorced men and witness to their stories, blogger writing about it (am I leaving anything out? Don’t think so.) And after all this I can safely say that the more I know the less I know.
So let’s go to poetry—on love, hate, and destruction, read by a man who knew a bit about the aforementioned three things, as well as divorce:
And by the way, for contrast, here’s Frost reading the same poem. Quite different:
In my continuing efforts to combat misleading memes around the blogosphere, I offer the following—the exchange in which Romney is alleged to have said that Obamacare is “not worth getting angry about.”
…in writing that anti-Gingrich letter that all the fuss was about yesterday, TNR’s Timothy Noah offers further background on some possible reasons behind Dole’s anger (in addition to what I’d already suggested here).
An excerpt summarizing the gist of it:
In 1990, when Dole signed on to the tax increase with which President George H.W. Bush broke his 1988 pledge, “Read my lips: No new taxes,” Gingrich had begun his sweaty climb up the House leadership. In that capacity, Gingrich participated in the deficit-summit meetings and gave every impression that he would loyally support the tax increase (which proved instrumental in gradually lowering the deficit, finally eliminated during Bill Clinton’s presidency, only to be resurrected almost immediately once George W. Bush became president). In the end, though, Gingrich double-crossed Dole, Bush pé¨re, and the other Republican leaders by marching out of the White House and declaring his opposition to the tax hike. In doing so, he helped throw the 1992 election to Democrat Bill Clinton.
Read the whole thing. If true, it certainly sheds more light on why Dole might be a tad perturbed by the prospect of Gingrich’s becoming the 2012 nominee. And if true, this sort of behavior would also go a ways towards explaining why almost no former colleagues of Gingrich’s are endorsing his candidacy (actually, I can’t think of any who are, but you might be able to offer some).
So, what’s your reaction? Do you think it’s all a lie or the truth (after all, it’s TNR, and in the article they get a chance to bash both Dole and Gingrich, a twofer)? Either way, does it just describe business as usual in DC? Is it the kind of clever maneuvering you want to see in a candidate? An example of Newt’s devotion to the principle of no new taxes? Or a case of Gingrich’s enormously self-aggrandizing duplicity? Or some combination of these?
Some further observations from the author of the piece:
These graybeards [the old guard “establishment Republicans”]…I suspect, hate Gingrich more than any Democrat does, because if you’re a Democrat you probably never had the opportunity to be double-crossed by Gingrich.
More and more “elite Republicans” (love that phrase) are getting into the act: Bob Dole (remember him? I’ve noticed a lot of ire around the blogosphere towards his 1996 candidacy, one of the times the “establishment” picked a “loser” from their team who then went right ahead and lost), Tom DeLay, the Elliot Abrams National Reviewpiece I already linked to in the post below this one, and Ann Coulter of course.
Why now? I think this is a fairly good statement of the reason:
A top conservative media figure said the flood of attacks reflects a “Holy crap, it could happen” moment in the movement, as Republican leaders began to realize after Gingrich’s South Carolina victory that he could become the nominee, the global face and voice of their party and theology.
I wonder who the “top conservative media figure” was. I bet someone whom the Tea Party wing would consider neither “top” nor “conservative.” But I do know that Gingrich is a man about whom few who ever worked with him have anything good to say. To me, that speaks volumes. As the Dole statement says:
Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.”
How you view all of this depends on how you view the Gingrich candidacy and the motives of these players. It’s really similar to the issue we discussed ad nauseum yesterday: do they want to save conservatism and follow William F. Buckley’s rule of nominating “the most conservative candidate who can win?” Or are they just protecting their own sphere of influence against a warrior who would destroy their cozy arrangement?
