They say it ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings (an old saw, I just read, that, ironically, references Gotterdammerung, an opera about the end of the world).
But forget Wagner and his endless arias. If current polls are correct, the Fat Lady is going to sing somewhere in the middle of the first act of the Republican presidential nominating process, making it one of the shortest operas on record.
And that may be a good thing. Jon Huntsman apparently thought so when he bowed out Monday before the South Carolina primary voting and endorsed Romney:
“This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people and not worthy of this critical time in our nation’s history,” he said in an address before a packed room of television cameras and reporters at the Convention Center here.
“I call on each campaign to cease attacking each other and instead talk directly to the American people about how our conservative ideas will create jobs, reduce our nation’s debt, stabilize energy prices and provide a brighter future for our children and our grandchildren.’’
Part of the reason a Romney consensus may be emerging so quickly is that there were so many debates before the actual voting began. We’re all suffering from debate fatigue and want to get this over with. Indeed, Sunday night’s questioning of the candidates on an individual basis by South Carolina voters, moderated by Mike Huckabee, was a welcome relief from the debate format. It was also considerably more revealing, not to mention offering evidence — once again — that the people are more intelligent (and less biased) than the media.
But perhaps the most important thing it revealed (or confirmed, to anyone paying attention) is that there is not very much difference between the candidates. With the exception of Ron Paul, who did not participate in the Huckabee event, they are in pretty much total agreement on all issues.
None of these guys will do. We need new candidates.
Yeah.
And what was that motor that John Galt invented that ran on … was it “kinetic” energy?
And what is that magical source of energy that “someone” will discover or invent that will totally liberate the world from “oil?” (The one that will finally end the riches going to grow the power and reach of insidious un-productive and totalitarian Islamism, and the onslaught on freedom by the environmentalists?) We need that too.
But it ain’t here. The inventor either hasn’t been born yet, hasn’t invented it yet, or hasn’t been “encouraged” because we’ve been too … bad in some way or other.
Our perfect inspirational leader ain’t here either. It could be we don’t deserve him/her — because our society hasn’t produced him/her.
(How did we get from Ronald Regan to GHW Bush, then Clinton and etc? Who ignored what’s been going on in our universities (total leftist takeover) for 40 years?)
Until he/she shows up (which may not be in our lifetimes), we’ll just have to do with what we’ve produced — if we can get them into office and the other, much more destructive ones, out.
You can’t have any new candidates. You have to make do with the ones we have.
So the question is this: When we have a nominee, what will you do?
If you are open to suggestions, then regardless of who is the candidate, support the new swift boaters in their future ads through the MSM and against the false messiah president’s radical leftist agenda. That spot light of publicity has to upend the narrative of how wonderful things have turned around after the inherited mess. The vote is against 4 more years of Obama.
Seriously, I did not even read your commentary, did not want any of your supposition to influence any of mine.
First off, Romney REALLY screwed up. Some of his answers were so forced as to seem that he was holding back a lot. You know, had to lie. Newt was the clear winner with Santorum and Perry being very good in this debate…………finally! RP was his normal self, articulate in his insanity, which REALLY pisses me off, since I lean toward Constitutional Libertarianism. The guy actually hurts my positions since he is, frelling insane. Why couldn’t he articulate why having 800 foreign bases in 130 foreign countries hurts the US? Hmmmmm, it is a free market principle, if you have your military spending their money in foreign countries, it does not help our economy! Oh well, the guy is probably suffering from some form of alzheimers.
Great debate in my opinion, here is how I saw it, Newt, Rick, Rick, Ron, Mitt. Mitt looked like a fool attempting to cover his progressive ways, he was hurt more than anyone was helped. The first Rick was Perry, not Santorum.
Huntsman endorsed Romney. yes the same Huntsman who is pro “choice”, global warming, believes in evolution. and so on and so on. one Rhino endorses another Rhino.
The fact that Huntsman endorsed Romney means exactly nothing.
I, for one, am sick of the continued efforts of PJM to foist Romney on us.
Oh, and BY THE WAY…
Did Mitt Romney actually LOSE the Iowa Caucus?
Is the GOP and the Tea Party about to commit suicide nominating RomneyCare?
If you’re sick and tired of it, and want it to be over early, just VOTE OBAMA:
your sycophantic kneeling (don’t forget a new drool cup) before Romney will likely only produce that result.
GINGRICH IN 2012!!!
I don’t much care for Romney, but you really think Gingrich is the alternative? Gingrich is a fattened goose that will be beheaded, cooked, and eaten by the liberal media. Talk about John McCain part duex, Gingrich ran around being a Democrat lapdog for the last 8 years and now he thinks we’ll just forget all that because he’s running for President. Ha! The man has way to much baggage.
“Baggage”?!?
As in Solyndra,LightSquared, Fast and Furious, Non-Recess Appointments, Larry Sinclair, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers?!?
Romney would crumple up in the heat of Obama’s attacks; last night he was like a deer in the headlights once people started criticizing him.
Cry me a river, fool.
So then it doesn’t matter who we put up, right, anyone can beat Obama, because according to you, he’s so vulnerable. I hope your right.
The media has been trying to “cook” this particular goose for decades. On balance they have not had much success. Every candidate has their set of warts, but Gingrich understands that this is a street fight and is willing to engage. He has baggage, but it’s old, well known, and he has a solid defense for those charges. Whether you think the Bain based attacks are fair or not, Romney has yet to create a strong counter narrative. You are unwise to write Newt off, he has a habit of resurgence.
All the blather about Newt’s flaws is so rehashed, people have become completely inured to it. Many (like me) believe that despite these flaws, Gingrich would do a good job as POTUS. Unfortunately though, he has made too many enemies who have the power to see to it he doesn’t come near the nomination. It really is too bad. We are going to be forced to settle for Romney, but I do think he will do a better job as POTUS than our incumbent. Remember too, Romney is no ideologue who has it in for the country, as is the case with Obama.
I do not believe the establishment GOP is smarter than the people. I believe they have been living in their own echo chamber for so long that they only hear themselves. Romney virtually tied in Iowa (and may have lost after the recount) and won in a purple/blue state…how the the hell does that translate into “winner?”
Texas had a Saddleup Texas Straw Poll held at Minure Maid Park (home of the Astros) this past weekend. It was a 3 day event with candidates, well known speakers, Freedomworks and Herman Cain gave the closing address.
Romney garnered 6% of the vote. Newt got 23% and Ron Paul got 27%..There was “in-person” and “text-in” voting. We had more votes than the Florida Straw Poll but got ZERO coverage in the media. One print reporter was there.
The GOP is determined to suppress the people.
Perhaps, Idiot Rik, you prefer Comrade Obama.
What a non sequitur. You inferred from my not thinking Gingrich electable enough that I’m somehow in support of Obama, eh? No, I would not prefer Obama, but I would not have preferred Obama 3 years ago, but the idiot Republican delegates thought it a good idea to put a Democrat lite up against a full bore socialist Democrat. Gingrich talks good, but his actions have not lived up to his talk. I voted in 1994 and soon after Gingrich crumpled like a wet napkin to Washington pressure. What makes you think he won’t do it again? At this point the whole field is filled with yahoos with some form of baggage, but if given the choice, I’d choose Santorum.
I agree, Newt’s my choice until he wins or has to quit. He may not be the most “likable” to the electorate as a whole, but he’s the one that consistently makes the most sense in these debates.
Freddie Mac Gingrich? Seriously. He sold what was left of his conservative soul to the idiots pushing the ruinous sub prime mortgage scheme. And then lied about it when caught. More recently he was caught attacking capitalism. Oh, and his latest Big Idea is to have 13 year olds replace unionized janitors.
Gingrich is all fatty sizzle and no steak.
You’re entitled to your spin, but you have misrepresented the facts. Newt worked for Freddie Mac as an adviser; they didn’t take his advice. I must have missed the part where he attacked capitalism. Finally, his reasoning for 13-year olds earning a little bit of cash and pride did not translate into replacing union jobs. Nice try, though.
I’m not suffering debate fatigue. I don’t watch this buffoonery in action. I’ll just read the highlights. These puppets attacking each other remind me of the old British satire Spitting Image. Their enemies, also called moderators, gleefully watch the circus, recording it all to eventually feed it all back onto the winner in the form of television attack ads touting “Even fellow republican X said of Mitt Romney.” They don’t have to sully their hands one bit, because these dimwits are doing all the mud slinging for them.
child please
“Following the will of the people” is like leading from behind. Once you are a Governor it is a good policy to LISTEN to the will of the people, and heed it,and act with their stated concerns in mind – particularly if you wish to be reelected.
But when you are campaigning you need to talk like a leader not a will-follower. TELL THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR. That’s what bothers me about Romney. I feel that he has the qualifications to become a very good President, but I wish t God that he would show some high degree of outrage, awareness the peril, the hanging on the precipice, the need to stop the Obama Administration’s march toward hard-core SOCIALISM. He must get in the face of the Democrats with the truth of the nature of the transformation they seek. He should be doing everything he can to show that he is NOT going to run another gutless, McCain style, “Let’s not be nasty to our friends across the aisle”, RNC-written campaign. He needs to make it clear that he IS hearing the will of the people -the T Party people -not the GOP sycophants. And that is exactly what a high percentage of your admirers are worried about. This is not about spending – it is about dismantling our system!
I believe his theme should be positive – pro Exceptionalism – pride without arrogance in our great Constitution and our history – a refusal to give it up and adopt the pattern of Socialist European nations that, half a century ago, were rudderless and today are the arrogant ones, as, in their utter failure they drop like flies.
This is not about spending – it is about dismantling our system!
Indeed. But the spending, or rather the debt, will perforce dismantle our system. We knew it was going to happen someday in the indistinct future; Obama’s supreme evil might be in his “trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see”—actually more like a trillion and a half—and is anyone willing to bet Romney is going to reign this back in.
That future is now going to be Real Soon Now, we’re going to default, probably not long after we’re no longer the least worst place in the world to park your money. The only question is when and how (inflation, official default, everyone’s IRAs get seized like in Argentina, etc.) and what will “our system” look like afterwords.
To this and many other issues and questions, I don’t see Romney being the answer.
Is “early” a good idea? I don’t think so. As long as the contenders stop attacking each other, and just speak about their own better worthiness?
As soon as it’s decided, the full impact, including the resources of George Soros, and the MSM, and the administration (which has been working on this for the last 3 years) — is going to hit and hit hard.
If you think the attacks on Sarah Palin were unbelievable — just wait. It’s going to be the worst we’ve ever seen. No holds barred. And so, the longer they have to do it …. What I mean is — the less time they have, the better.
Some sort of preparations also ought to be made for November in the (likely — I hope?) event of a Republican win. Never worried about this in any other election — but there might be a certain amount of violence in the streets — it seems there are signs of preparations being made — Occupy — Unions — etc., etc. It’s probably the largest, strongest, most outspoken and demonstrative — truly leftist — contingency we’ve seen in this country. And we do know what leftists do — and want to see done (There were the recent calls for Americans to behave like the Greeks — to riot in the streets — by prominent leftists (then we got Occupy)) — especially if they lose.
Street violence in the event of a Republican win, if widespread, would devastate the left in the minds of at least 3/4s of voters. It would have repercussions into 2014 and 2016. For that reason I don’t think it is very likely.
It’s already started to happen well before the election. It may not be relegated to every street in small town USA, but certainly enough to catch the nightly news. The left will certainly orchestrate the events so that they’re painted as the victims acting “peacefully” (occupying/crapping in public places) while being “brutalized” by police officers who are really the “GOP” in disguise. Same old song and dance but it will encompass not just OWS but unions and college kids. You’re right though, it would likely have a negative effect and backfire.
There is no such thing as a perfect candidate. It dawned on me recently that I would have a tough choice to make between two flawed presidential candidates named Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The odds are that Mitt Romney will be our nominee. We should not blindly trust him. On the contrary, that is why it is so important to surround him with as many Republican legislators as possible.
“We should not blindly trust him”. I don’t trust him at all. He has never implemented a conservative policy in public life, he has attacked the philosophy of Reagan, and now he runs as a conservative. He’ll, he’s been endorsed by John McCain and John Sununu. That means he is as trustworthy as Hank Paulsen, or Karl Rove. I don’t intend to vote for him.
David, you are absolutely correct when you write “On the contrary, that is why it is so important to surround him with as many Republican legislators as possible.” A winning poker player is one who can turn a mediocre hand into a winner. A loser is the guy who would take that same hand and fold it i.e., stay at home and grouse about RomneyCare, John McCain’s endorsement, etc. The only addition that needs to be made to your remark is the insertion of the adjective “conservative” before legislators. As you imply, winning the future is going to be a helluva lot more difficult than simply electing “the right guy” as president.
“…there are times when a leader should not follow the will of the people.”
Given we are a Republic, not a Democracy, that probably should be “all times”.
Mitt has two big problems:
(1) He follows the will of the media-indoctrinated public. He’s too afraid of alienating them.
(2) He can not articulate our unique American precepts as well as Newt. Does he not know them?
Like the Bushes, Kerry and others, Romney grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he finds it hard to express our exceptional principles around it.
As much as I despise the actions of the modern Democrat party I must credit them for being wise enough to never allow themselves to be pulled into the circular firing-squad “debate” format that the Repubs allowed to happen. The Repubs have saved the Dems tons of campaign expense by producing the anti-Repub ads for them. We are at a point where are nation’s survival is at risk and the party who could offer the needed salvation goes into battle pre-wounded by participating in a fiasco whereby they either showed up unprepared and trying to explain themselves and/or shooting at each other. Lord help us if they don’t do any better than this during the battle with President Marxist. We can lose this election…..”yes we can”, sayeth Obama.
I’d vastly prefer settling this at the convention with no clear winner till then. Call me an idealistic dreamer, but it would be grand to draft someone like Allen West at the convention. It would make for an historical break from the business as usual, and would unite the GOP base as it hasn’t been united since Regan’s second run.
No wonder the nominating process has degenerated into a juvenile snark session not dissimilar to a blog war.
I tried 3 separate times to listen last night. Couldn’t get engaged.
7 more of these things scheduled through March 19 ?
Say it ain’t so.
I couldn’t be more for the “fat-lady” staying away and keeping her song out of it! I am not for the “organization man” for the elite “establishment” with the “go along to get along” moderate record. A fellow who can’t have illegal aliens working for him, as he is running for office, et al. Such a candidate would likely propel me into returning to an “Independent” status and focusing solely on the House, Senate and local candidates.
I would know someone by their record! The Governor’s (Perry’s) record couldn’t be more brightly opposed to that of the current Administration’s. His relevant conservative experience as a successful executive couldn’t be better pitted against that of our ugly failure of our dear leader. The icing on Governor Perry’s cake, so to speak, is his steady improvement in debating. His “retail” skills are already of record. Too settle for anything less, would be a major disservice to our future IMO!
Agreed. Obama doesn’t even trot congress out as often as these guys get together.
From where I sit, Newt won this debate hands down, handed leftist, race car playing, double agent Juan Williams his ass, and Romney pretty much fumbled and stumbled around. Perry and Santorum were just OK, and nut job Paul advocated us becoming turtles and withdrawing into our shells, in the hope that our enemies would just leave us alone and go away.
You know, I am pretty tired of the MSM telling me who won or lost, and what I should think, and how I should vote, and who is “inevitable” and who is not.
+1
Thanks, your bare bones assessment has helped crystalize it for me. I have recycled my support a dozen times already. Started with Newt, seems like I’ll end with Newt. Thank God the phone will stop ringing with canned Romney campaign messages on Saturday when we South Carolinians can go back to being unimportant redneck hicks in a flyover state.
(an old saw, I just read, that, ironically, references Gotterdammerung, an opera about the end of the world)
An add-on to that Wiki article: In the Sixties, I was told that the line appeared in Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. (I never read the book myself.)
In the actual opera, the Fat Lady sings, and then they broom Hilda off the stage.
/sorry …
The item not mentioned: the T.E.A. party. If the countryclub republicans insist on shoving a candidate down the collective throat of the country, they will find they “Have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve”. Leaders must rise from among the people; not from the self proclaimed ‘elete’ that ‘know better’ than the people what they want.
I see the Progressive Republican and Democrat media and the billionaire financial industry plutocrats as OJ’s defense dream team. I see Romney as OJ. And I see the Iowa and New Hampshire Republican electorates (and other states???) as the OJ jury…suckers who are easy marks for smooth-talking pros. I can smell conmen pretty quickly and Romney and his dream team are pros. Romney used his conman skills in his business success and he is using his experience as an inveterate liar (AKA flip flopper) to con the public.
If you think Boehner and McConnell will hold Romney’s Progressive instincts in check (or that either of them will be replaced if Romney voters prevail), I have a wonderful herbal cold cure to sell you for only $100 per bottle. Suckers! I hope the debates and the attacks against Romney intensify and continue long enough for the fog to be lifted from enough voters’ eyes. God help us.
Free loans to all, interest to none.No cutbacks here, just unlimited borrowing to fuel Obama’s reelection.Appease Iran for cheap gas to fuel his vanity bonfire.It’s as if the 1861 Congress borrowed money for the south. The GOP doesn’t have a clue.This election is bought and payed for, by our grandchildren.Every sick person,real or imagined, every student, every unemployed,every government worker, every union worker,every artist, every welfare recipient, every person who pay their mortgage,every immigrant with relatives,will get some of that free money and they ain’t thanking Mitt Romney.
One wonders who, how, why, or when did the RNC/GOP — whoever — agree to all of these debates. Was this a scheme hatched by the evil liberal media types to expose and over-expose all of the warts of these candidates? In nearly fifty years of being eligible to vote for POTUS, I cannot remember an election year with *half* of the debates as this year.
My wish for them to end is largely driven by the fact that Santorum grates on me: he reminds me of a rat with dentures.
Priceless
I agree that RNC and the candidates were insane to agree to these debates–to the number of them, to their format, but especially to the roster of those asking the questions and “moderating,” who are all leftists or, if supposed “conservatives,”i.e.–the Fox News crew–still lean to the Left. Why not Carl Rove, or Rush Limbaugh, Carl Levin, or even Sarah Palin? Now Palin as moderator and questioner I would pay money to see.
What the hell were they thinking?
In tearing each other up in the process of these debates, the Republican candidates have basically written the Democrat’s plan of attack and ad campaign for them.
The best events of the pre-primary season were, to me at leaast, the Value Voters Forum, the Cain/Gingrich event, Huckabee’s Q&A with the AGs… the ‘debates’ are a format that started when the MFM was at three networks and the need to get everyone on a stage was felt to be necessary. That is no longer the case, and really wasn’t even back then as any of these alternative styles could have been done even back in the ’60s. At some point candidates will need to break away from the alphabets and do something different to help show their philosophy of government and how that works out into policy and then practice. Are any of these candidates good executives? That is hard to say as running a company is not like being the Head of Government… normally Governors get a leg up on that, but in this era where so much has been absorbed by the federal system, that remains problematic.
So how about something like the old Fred Friendly seminars, where you get a range of viewpoints on a discussion format, not a Q&A format, and you get to see if there is ability to hold a position and yet participate in give and take? To run something like that you don’t need an ‘impartial’ conductor of the session, but one that all the candidates can agree upon that will run a good session… that, too, is an executive level skill and who is chosen and why would help to demonstrate that the candidates can at least do THAT.
Candidates answering questions in isolation, not knowing how other candidates have answered, would also be a good format, with pre-agreed upon individuals chosen to ask questions on topics that are known to the candidates.
For fiscal issues a similar program where each candidate has their fiscal advisor with them to help consult and then allow the candidate to figure out just how their fiscal viewpoints and staffing measure up against others… having in-depth and background given on short subjects by the advisors to help open discussions would also be interesting in such a format. And this type of format can be opened to such things as foreign policy, military affairs, or other powers delegated to the President that any candidate would have to assume in office.
Really, with all the ‘debates’ we never really get to see the qualities necessary to BE President put on display. So you can answer questions in front of an audience on live tv? So? How many questions does any President in the modern age actually make that way? If you want to examine the qualities necessary for the office, then the events should highlight those and get away from the ‘reporters’, MFM and audiences as NO President has ever run their terms like that. Can you really say you know why a candidate stands for what they stand for, or that they can participate in a diverse dialogue with give and take to not only present a position but to forward a conversation? The American public would be well served by such alternative means of showing candidates in venues where they can show off the qualities necessary to be President… instead of being in a glitzy game show format run by slanted ‘hosts’.
yes, it IS getting old. It got old after Iowa when it became apparent who the GOP establishment demanded the candidate be.
Just call it now. Mitt ‘Empty Suit’ Romney is the candidate and therefore Obama will with the 2012 election.
This is my opinion about the GOP:
Obama and the Dems are A problem but they are not THE problem. THE problem is the political correctness that infests this country.
Example: either you’re for gay marriage or your a bigot. Multiply that by 100 issues.
The GOP have effectively been silenced by political correctness by thinking about insane things like candidates who are Hispanic or black simply because they are Hispanic or black.
The deer in the headlights effect is actually a compromise by the GOP candidates with the fact of political correctness. The GOP cannot run on what they want to run on because they feel they will become irrelevant and they may be right.
What place is there for the GOP in a country of “Glee” and where black actors from “Red Tails” can shameless admire people simply because they are black but where a white man saying they admire a white man in the same way would be considered racist?
The GOP should stop kow towing to political correctness and acting as if modern fads are here to stay as part of some “enlightenment” and stick by their values. If the GOP is transformed into their own foe, what’s the difference between that and irrelevance? At least they would still be gatekeepers for decent values.
The number one physical threat to America is a demographic tidal wave of failure from the Third World. The GOP should be calling for an end to all immigration, take the “racist” heat and start arguing from a point of view of logic where a country of 300 million is simply too big to effectively govern.
Actually, I think that the more criticism the better during the primaries. The successful candidate should be exposed to every possible criticism and should as a result be prepared to answer that criticism forcefully and convincingly. Holding back criticism so that the candidate can be embarrassed in the general election is doing the candidate no favor.
Obama is particularly vulnerable because the press has refused to criticize him, allowing him to do awful things and to get away with hypocritical and false comments. Denouncing these things forcefully will seem shocking and new when they are made in the campaign.
The press thinks it is helping him but it isn’t.
I agree. Newt actually did Romney a favor by hitting him on Bain now, since it allows him to prepare for the inevitable Obama onslaught there. I have noticed that both Romney and Perry have gotten stronger as the debates have went on. Perry is now slightly more articulate, and Romney has become both more conservative, and more able to articulate his conservatism in an exciting way. Newt was always strong in the debates, which is what brought his candidacy back from the grave. But the problem with Newt is what he does outside of the debates, for every home run he hits in a debate, he has a huge strikeout elsewhere. Santorum is articulate, but he is too attached to his socon issues, in a year when fiscal policy is what matters.
I don’t know if/how much it was a factor in Perry’s early debates but he was recovering from back surgery at the time.
I know people who’ve undergone this – and the required painkillers are mentally debilitating.
I happen to think that Newt may, may have saved himself from total defeat last night. A couple of extremely unusual standing ovations from the audience in response to his answers to “gatcha questions don’t lie.
Let’s face it, Mitt just isn’t a lot of conservative’s favorite, and despite the RNC, Congressional Republicans, and the MSM pushing for him, and all the talk of his “inevitability,” he still hasn’t been able to close the deal.
So,I think that is possible, just possible, for Newt to come back, yet again, and elbow Mitt out of the procession and take his place on the way to the coronation.
Romney is the favorite conservative of former liberal reluctant conservative Simon.
This article makes a good point about Romney being the dreaded Ma moderate. There is a big difference between being a Rhino in a red state, like McCain or Linsey Graham, where there is no excuse, vs being a Rhino in a dem state like Ma, where by local standards Romney was probably the most conservative politician in the state, and could never have survived as a “real conservative”. I think that Romney is somebody who is as conservative as his electorate will let him be, which at the national level is pretty darn conservative.
The reason Romney is winning is all the other conservative candiates in the race are fatally flawed in some respect. Romney may not be that exciting, but he is competant, and free of scandal, or major personality flaws. And I have been heartened by his ability to demolish the rest of the repub field, because it indicates he is not a milktoast like McCain, but knows how to fight for survival when he needs to.
I am completely over Newt, et al attacking Romney over tax returns, making money, etc. Newt has made “Bain” a dirty word in typical liberal fashion. I won’t forgive him for it. This is exactly what is wrong with this country. Do not reward him for being and acting like a liberal.
If Romney wins big in SC, I think he will run the table early and wrap it up, with some minor long term competition from Ron Paul, who is the only candidate with enough money and guaranteed minimum support, to never have to quit. If somebody other than Paul can beat him, he will become the designated anti romney, and it could become a much longer race.
Gingrich is great with the ‘hit’em and knock’em out’ debate answers. That’s great in that kind of one-on-one situation. But, he’s not so good in situations where you have to be equal to others – and not dominant over them.
We already have a president who is a pathological narcissist and has to feel dominant over others. We don’t need a GOP version of that.
Something else I noted, in a brief surfing by of MSNBC. I heard a black pundit say something extraordinary.
By the way – I dislike the term ‘African-American’. First, it ignores citizenship; we are all Americans; and why is only one group defined by an ancient geographic origin? Why isolate them in such a way? [Apart from the fact that our entire species, white, black, green and purple skin colour - are assumed to have originated in Africa.]The term ‘African-American’, in my view, marginalizes people of black skin. If ALL Americans were hyphenated by presumed continent of ancestral origin – OK..but this is not the case.
At any rate, this man made an extraordinary comment about Gingrich’s comment on ‘food stamps’.
He was supporting the RIGHT of ‘African-Americans’ to receive foods stamps. The right. Why?
He was saying that ‘food stamps’ were OK, because they were ‘payback’ for all the ‘free work’ done by the slaves 150 years ago.
WHAT?
He was justifying someone NOW on welfare because someone else, with black skin – but not necessarily an ancestor – was a slave 150 years ago???? The guy was saying that ‘they gave all this free work long ago, so now, these people are getting their rewards’.
That’s an incredible perspective: IF someone with whom you identify, in any way – by ethnicity, skin colour, nationality – even unrelated to you – has suffered some injustice at any time in history, THEN, you are entitled to reimbursement by the govt.
Incredible.
It does not marginalize black Americans in any way but is merely a qualifier to distinguish when one might be writing about American black folks as opposed to black folks everywhere. It could be used for a host of other things. Changing names still leaves them much as they were before no matter what you call them.
I claim that the term ‘African-Americans’ does marginalize people with black skin because it makes them a homogeneous group by long ago past geographic origin rather than focusing on them and what they are NOW as individuals. And as members of various other groups – such as via their work: doctors, teachers, dentists, truck drivers, biologists, waiters etc. Or via their interests: arts, sports, hunting, cycling etc.
Again, it defines them, not as they are NOW but within a criterion of ancient geographic origin. How does such a description actually have any validity to describe them NOW?
Plus, to claim that a past experience of someone in this ‘set’ is to be dealt with by a current-time interaction is irrational. Because my ancestor was killed by X 200 years ago does not mean that the current day descendents of X owe me anything. That goes for natives, blacks, whites..and green people.
I like Gingrich. He’s an intelligent guy who can go into minute detail though can go off-topic at times as well.
Admittedly I do like how he OWNED Juan ‘My people’ Williams (honestly, it’s as if Eric Holder was channeling one-trick pony Juan. How Williams continues to get ANY respect anywhere is beyond me) at the recent debate.
As for his trying to reign in the ‘Conservative’ vote/appeal, Gingrich was a Rockefeller moderate supporter rather than Goldwater in ’64.
I don’t know how many of the above actually live in and will vote in the SC primary but I do and I will. And that vote will be for Newt. If my personal polling date is correct, so will the majority of the upstate. Most of us are scratching our heads as to why our Governor practically shot herself out of a cannon in her rush to endorse Mitt. Maybe she cut a deal for VP, maybe she’s in love.. who knows. I think she shot herself in the foot. Sarah Palin’s endorsement ( yes it was an endorsement )is a boost and there is another debate Thursday night. True it’s CNN and don’t expect salient or substantive questions, but we will find out if the left wants Mitt or is afraid of Newt. To those who say , “Oh Newts great in a debate but then … ” Just ask yourself how the present occupant of the Oval Office got there.. It wasn’t his history, his track record or his college transcripts. It was his oratory. Now he has a record and it stinks. Sure Newt has baggage but its old and encapsulated. And in my opinion , it’s virtually bulletproof compared to Obama’s
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