Gingrich is the GOP's comeback kid

John Rossomando  
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Newt Gingrich might have a lot of skeletons in his closet and have made questionable personal decisions in the past. But he has one thing, he’s a known commodity who has a degree of depth and imaginativeness that his opponents lack. Unlike a lot of other candidates, he's already been vetted. But he needs to learn from his mistakes and those of his fellow candidates.

Herman Cain’s self-destructive loose lips and inability to give the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel cogent about Libya and collective bargaining reveal him to be a political lightweight, if not a nice guy on a personal level. I’ll say he’s the latter, having spoken with him 1-on-1, but as the American Spectator’s Ross Kaminski observes:

“No doubt, Herman Cain's performance on the Libya question was the low point of his interview and his answers to some other questions were better, but they were not all good -- and certainly not good enough. Like it or not, this is a job interview where you're judged by your biggest weaknesses, not your average over the entire range of questions -- not that he even averaged a B-minus. And even on the questions where Cain does better than on foreign policy, he comes across too frequently as parroting talking points rather than answering from a true and deep understanding of the issues of the day.”

Then you have Romney alternatives like Gov. Rick Perry who have similar problems conveying basic ideas beyond a superficial level.

I put my money on Gingrich early on, but looked elsewhere as his campaign seemed to self-destruct. But as Craig Shirley told The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis, the Gingrich of 2012 is not unlike Richard Nixon was in 1968 when he came back from losing to JFK in 1960 after everyone had discounted him:

“We are witnessing one of the greatest–if not the greatest–political comebacks in American History.

It is a story rich in irony (remember the consultants who left Newt for Perry?) and personality durability. In the end, Gingrich’s durability might be one of his greatest assets, like Clinton’s and Nixon’s and Reagan’s resilience was for them. Clinton, Nixon and Reagan all staged dramatic comebacks as well. All were pronounced politically dead by the intelligentsia but they had other ideas, as does Gingrich.

It is also a story about how the elites have finally and completely walled themselves off from the American people and thus from reality. I mean, these people are proclaiming Romney all but the nominee when every conservative I know loathes the idea of him as the nominee.

Newt will run an unconventional campaign to say the least, but he is the only Republican of the past 40 years other than Ronald Reagan to successfully deliver on his promises. He’s the best on the stage at the moment.

If Republicans want to nominate someone with a track record for success and for getting things done, then Newt is the only Republican presidential candidate who has shown he delivers on promises.

Comments

[Robert DMML]

Narcissus versus Lazarus 2012?
Tuesday, 15 November, 2011 13:45
From:
"Melanie Phillips"

"The west is now suffering from the baleful legacy of the 'Boomer generation', those born after World War Two and who turned with such nihilistic glee on the consumerist society that had nurtured them. As this article by Walter Russell Mead suggests, the Boomers created a culture of narcissism that has expressed itself on both left and right through failed or destructive economic and social policies. The resulting self-centred and debauched culture has created a vacuum into which the enemies of civilisation are steadily marching.

Like their Conservative party cousins in the UK, US Republicans have failed to grasp that the task for conservatives today is as stark and as urgent as it has been ever since Edmund Burke articulated it in the face of the French revolutionary terror: to defend life and liberty in the free world against its enemies both within and without.
Faced with the apparently overwhelming power of the left-wing media and intelligentsia, weaponised through their Orwellian hijacking of the language of the centre ground and their career-ending bullying and intimidation of all who dare to disagree, many conservatives have succumbed to the cultural mind-bending without even realising they have been in effect captured by the enemy. (Imho that would include Cameron – my brackets)

The reason why Newt Gingrich is striking such a chord is principally because he does realise all this very well, and so delivers a very clear message and the hope of a return to reality. He gives expression, in other words, to an authentic conservative voice. Gingrich is very smart, a serious thinker and a good communicator. He is also extremely tough and resilient. He is without doubt a Big Beast in the political jungle -- beside whom Mitt Romney, his chief rival, seems a diminished figure.
There is still much to play for and maybe Gingrich will fall by the wayside yet again. Without doubt, he has his flaws. He is a loose cannon, a polariser rather than a healer, and with a dubious ethical record. But in a poor field it is possible that Gingrich's strengths will bring him out on top”. Read it all.

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that Mel Philips is criticising all “ Boomers” note she refers to those “who turned with such nihilistic glee on the consumerist society that had nurtured them. Imho that would include the lefties at the BBC, the Poltical Correct, the Greens, the Great and the Good Liberals and liberals, lefty judicial activists and the EU
”

[Kaine]

"he is the only Republican of the past 40 years other than Ronald Reagan to successfully deliver on his promises."

Tell that to his ex-wives.