It’s been fascinating to watch the melting away of support for Newt Gingrich in the face of a concentrated and unprecedented – in my memory - attack by the republican establishment. It appears more and more likely that, whatever the result of the Iowa caucus and the other early primaries, Mitt will be able to continue in the race as the party elites’ candidate of choice among the current crop of hopefuls and ultimately win the nomination. That doesn’t mean they actually want him as the nominee if offered other choices. But unless the pale white underbelly of the party conspires to talk somebody currently haunting the sidelines into jumping in, Mitt is going to be the man for the simple reason that the rest of these clowns scare the shit out of everyone, including – and maybe especially – the conservative punditocracy and intelligencia.
Virtually every one of the most prominent conservative commentators and talking heads have body slammed Gingrich for the last two weeks, with a withering flurry of insults and name calling that’s made even Ann Coulter blush demurely.
George Will, the horn-rimmed glasses and bow tie wearing master of overly verbose and “look-at-how-smart-I-am” commentary lashed out at Newt, calling him repugnant among other less than flattering descriptions, in an overheated blast not seen since he skewered Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Supreme Court. Will replaced William Safire as my favorite conservative long ago and, to give him credit, he’s been pretty outspoken about some of the stupider manifestations of conservatism exhibited by the Grand Old Party. He was pretty tough on Sarah Palin as McCain’s choice for VP as well. But Gingrich must have pissed on his loafers in the Capital men’s room or something because he has a ripping hard-on about Newt.
Actually Coulter herself has been consistently critical of Gingrich as well, writing about his time as speaker, “To the contrary, his pointless bloviating about orphanages and child janitors harmed the chances for welfare reform, despite the fact that the American people, the Republican Congress and the Democratic president (publicly, at least), supported it.
“Pointless bloviating” has a nice ring to it. Newt’s Washington Insider credentials have pissed off tea party true believers like Rand Paul – to be fair, his dad is also running so it may be a little reverse nepotism – and he represents the hard line tea party, small government, quasi-libertarian wing of the party to go along with having pissed off much of the Eastern party establishment with his acid-tongued and ill-considered lashing out in all directions in an apparent attempt to make the cool kids stop making fun of him. He has, of course, revisited this “child janitor” brilliance this year, impressing no one and causing derisive laughter from the left and the right.
His foreign policy is downright scary, but that’s true of most of this herd with the exception of Rand’s dad, Ron Paul. Newt called for a “no fly” zone over Lybia but when Obama moved to enforce just that, Newt said he “wouldn’t have intervened”. Left unexplained was how you have a no fly zone without intervening. He wants to apparently air drop iPhones to the Iranian dissidents so they can OMG each other without the Mulahs interfering and thinks the basis of our Cuba policy should be to somehow equip every Cuban with a radio so they can listen to Rush and Laura Ingraham and learn about America.
But the bigger point is, this year when there isn’t a candidate who is inspiring lasting commitment and excitement and when the completely dull and predictable Romney has spent the summer wandering listlessly near the front of the pack and generating a collective, “Whatever…” from voters desperately turning over rocks looking for the “Oh my god, anyone but Obama” candidate, Gingrich’s sudden bolt to the front of the pack has caused a backlash from every direction of the political compass. And the funniest part is, he probably doesn’t really give a shit, ultimately. He’s getting tons of pub for all of the insipid nonsense he has written since the mid-nineties and he’s getting to binge on ego-gratifying attention while giving the finger to the Wills and Krauthammers of the world.
It’s almost as if he is playing everyone, although he has seemed surprised when his ship sailed so quickly. In Iowa, evangelical christians are among the “second thoughts” crowd diving overboard this week, leaving Newt sputtering and leaking oil after his heroic charge to the front. So tallying up the score, his haters now include the republican party elite, the most prominent conservative journalists and commentators, the tea party hard asses and the evangelical christian community. I’m not sure that leaves anyone and it certainly doesn’t leave enough support to win the nomination, with or without the endorsement of the Manchester Union Leader.
Mitt has been gathering endorsements left and right – so to speak – over the last few days, as if those people doing the endorsing have been getting late night phone calls or finding bloody horse heads in the garage or something. It’s clearly been decided that he is the only electable candidate running and so he’s been chosen by default and as the anti-Newt candidate, a delicious irony given that the summer was spent looking for the anti-Romney candidate. Apparently finding out that that candidate was Newt was a bridge too far and another in a long line of “be careful what you wish for” moments. No sir, Mitt has been chosen, his hair is good, he’s ready for his close up and if he screws it up it will be the shock of the 21st century so far. It’s been fun though, Newt…
...not to mention his grand inquisition idea to haul judges with whom he disagrees before congress to 'splain themselves, or simply ignore those rulings he really, really doesn't like...(E.D.)
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