Plan B Forum

As Newt has received a lot more focus and attention over the past several weeks, it looks like the air may be coming out of the Gingrich surge...

In Iowa, the torrent of negative ads against Gingrich have definitely been taking a toll; after peaking in the mid 30's he's back down in the low 20's; the latest poll, (Rasmussen, conducted 12/13) actually has Romney pulling ahead with a three point lead, 23-20.

If you look at the last few polls, you can see Perry and Bachmann also chipping away at the support Newt enjoyed a few weeks ago:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... html#polls

Gingrich's lead has also been dropping in South Carolina and Florida...

Though a recent poll New Hampshire actually has him within five points. We'll have to see if this is confirmed with another poll or winds up being an outlier; another poll conducted on the same day, (12/12) has Romney with and 11 point lead, and one conducted contemporaneously over a three day period, (12/10-12/13) has Romney up by 18.

Nationally, the latest Gallup poll has Gingrich's margin over Romney back down to four points, 28-24. (This is down from 17 points in early Dec.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -1452.html

(I believe the Freddie Mac thing may finally be starting to get some traction. I think Gingrich has developed a pretty good response on his marital infidelity issues, but his explanations on Freddie Mac, are transparently lacking in credibility; Michelle Bachmann actually did an excellent job of raking him over the coals on this in the last debate)

Huntsman has also been having a "surge" of sorts. He's broken into double digits consistently in the past several polls in New Hampshire and even in Iowa, (where he has done no campaigning for months) he's consistently up in the 4-5 percent range, which may not sound like much, but it's double where he was before.

The national polling results are interesting, and I highly recommend them as reading for any of my Republican Brethren who may be supporting Gingrich who also actually care about winning the election....


......................................Obama Romney
RCP Average 11/8 - 12/15 -- 46.4.... 44.6.. Obama +1.8


......................................Obama Gingrich
RCP Average 11/8 - 12/15 -- 50.0.... 41.6.. Obama +8.4

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... dates.html

Now, aside from what this month and a half rolling average shows, (That Romney is consistently within the margin of error vis a vis Obama...where he has been for months... while Gingrich polls as a clear loser) if you follow the link, you will see that the results are even more damning in terms of the wisdom of nominating Gingrich than the average suggests, because it's the earliest polls where he runs the closest to Obama, (one poll in early November has him down by only 2 points) and the most recent ones where he is the furthest behind....(The two most recent polls have him trailing Obama by 10 and 13 points respectively)

Also, if you want to drive the independents who have deserted Obama in droves over the past 3 years back into his camp, then Gingrich is definitely your man. All the recent polling indicates that he is a poison pill in terms of attracting those voters. (Romney leads among independents)

Additionally, polls in the critical swing states (like Florida and Ohio) show Romney either leading Obama or only slightly behind while Gingrich remains the clear loser. (On top of that, the polling indicates that a Romney candidacy puts several other electoral vote-rich states in play; like Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey...that are out of reach for Gingrich)

All of this provides strong evidence for a contention I made earlier; that the more focus there is on Gingrich, both on the distasteful things in his past, and the current persona he projects, (his anti-Charisma and his proclivity for continuing to say reckless things) the less likely people are to vote for him. He simply does not wear the spotlight well...

This is the absolute last problem you want to have with your candidate, particularly in an election with 11 months to go, and an opponent that will have a billion dollars to spend helping to make you look even worse....

A few observations and points:

Newt's leads have eroded...in the face of a pretty-much unprecedented full-court press by an army of country-club Republicans, who fear that he will not robotically parrot every right-wing mantra on cue, as the others have tended to do over the past months. The fact that he maintains any lead whatsoever in the face of this onslaught is evidence of staying power and not fading into oblivion.

The whining about the money his firm got from the quasi-government whore organizations is total nonsense. "Lobbying" is, taking money from a person or a "special interest" for the purpose of exerting influence over policy-makers to promote the interests of the person or organization paying the fee. None of these fees even remotely approximate "lobbying," which appears to be the "accusation" that is being made.

Who, exactly, was he lobbying for? What policies was he trying to promote, EXACTLY?

It's all rubbish. Like every other ex-offico politician, Newt has been using his celebrity to make money since leaving office. He's just much better at it than most, and much more talented. The problem is not with Newt or his consulting firm, it's with the organizations themselves and their ability to promiscuously spend what will ultimately be taxpayer money for purposes that are utterly, totally wasteful.

Eleven months is an eon in electoral time. To try to assert that the results of polls taken last week are indicative of the results of an election to be held next November is like projecting the Pittsburgh Pirates as World Series champions because they won a Spring Training game against their Triple-A farm team.

Frankly, the more of this garbage criticism that I hear, the more convinced I am that he is The Guy.

He reminds me of a guy I worked for one time. I was working for a small manufacturing company and we hired a new president who had never worked in the same industry before, but seemed bright and enthusiastic. He had a thousand different ideas, and pursued every one of them. Different manufacturing techniques, small corporate acquisitions, adding a couple of product lines, hiring oddball salesmen. Most of them were total busts. But at the end of five years, we had increased revenues and profits every year, and had gone from no bonus at all to about 20%. After he moved on to a bigger company, we all laughed a lot at some of his harebrained schemes, but the bottom line was that he doubled revenues and profits, while only increasing headcount by about 10%.

This is what I would expect of a Gingrich presidency. A lot of "crazy" initiatives and a lot of progress. Easy to mock, but just what we need now. I don't hear anyone out there on either side who has the slightest fucking clue about how to turn the economy around, or to bring the Federal government deficit to a manageable level.

Except Gingrich. He has dozens of ideas, some of which will work.

Newt's got more trouble in Iowa:

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is now leading the pack in Iowa as Newt Gingrich's support fades.

Paul now has the vote of 23 percent of 597 likely Republican caucus voters, according to Public Policy Polling, in a survey taken from Dec. 16-18. Mitt Romney is close behind at 20 percent, while Gingrich as slipped dramatically to 14 percent. Fourth place is a dead heat between Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry at 10 percent. While Jon Huntsman is gaining traction in New Hampshire, in Iowa he's only got 4 percent of the likely voters. Gary Johnson comes in at 2 percent.

“Newt Gingrich’s Iowa support was extremely soft and has collapsed in only two weeks,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Ron Paul has taken the lead, but it will be interesting to see if he can turn out his unique base of voters for the caucus. If any of the second-tier candidates see their supporters abandon them in the final two weeks, Mitt Romney is the most likely beneficiary and it could propel him to the win.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/T ... -poll-says

A Paul win in Iowa with a close Romney second place finish and Newt back in the pack with the rest of Not Romneys would be a real late Christmas gift for Romney....

I heard a news report a little while ago that said that a PAC backing Romney has another 730K in anti-Gingrich ads slated for airing in Iowa this coming week. (And that's just Romney; it doesn't include what's being spent by Paul, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum)

By contrast, Gingrich has 21K in Iowa media buys slated for this week.

a pretty-much unprecedented full-court press by an army of country-club Republicans, who fear that he will not robotically parrot every right-wing mantra on cue, as the others have tended to do over the past months.

Dave, it's true that the vast majority of high profile establishment Republicans are coming down hard on Gingrich, but the reason is because they are concerned, (with some justification) that he'll blow a fantastic opportunity for the party and lead the GOP to disaster next November.

And they aren't the only ones that have been slamming Gingrich hard....

A large number of former and current GOP members of Congress who represent a range of ideological positions, who served with Gingrich while he was Speaker have also come out against him...

And the conservative talk radio world hasn't lined up in lockstep behind him either....

Rush is promoting him, but Glen Beck is attacking him full bore, and Michael Savage has actually offered to pay Gingrich a million dollars to get out of the race.

Just to round out the discussion, let's see what new awful and fundamentally stupid thing Newt, The Brightest Light Among The Dim Bulbs In The GOP, has said, lately:

'CHECKS AND BALANCES' JUST REFERS TO A TIFFANY'S CREDIT LINE RIGHT?
Newt Gingrich Wants America’s Judges Arrested, To Save Constitution
by Kirsten Boyd Johnson

9:20 am December 19, 2011 68 Comments 822 Views

What astonishingly irrelevant non-issue is bloated gasbag Newt Gingrich chewing on lately to fart wind into the sails of far-right dingbats? Let’s see… hang on one second, so Newt’s puffy fingers can fight their way through his jacket pocket for one of his greasy, crumpled cocktail napkin scribbles filled with strings of bizarre grievances that he dreams up in the mall bar while his creepy robot-wife is busy licking diamonds next door at Tiffany’s, to recharge her battery. OH HERE’S A FUN ONE: “Arrest all the judges who seem ‘liberal.’” This will save America, just like every proposal Newt Gingrich has ever made.

From Talking Points Memo:

There’s “no reason the American people need to tolerate a judge that out of touch with American culture,” Gingrich said on CBS’ Face the Nation, referring to a case where a judge ruled that explicit references to religion were barred from a high school graduation ceremony. And Gingrich recently has said judges should have to explain some of their decisions before Congress.

One might note that judges already have to explain themselves, not just to Congress but to everyone, with things called “rulings,” but this is beside the point of the REAL CRIME, a judge somewhere thinking she or he knows more about anything than Newt Gingrich.

Host Bob Schieffer asked Gingrich how he planned to enforce that. Would you call in the Capitol Police to apprehend a federal judge, he asked.

“If you had to,” Gingrich said. “Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshall in.”

…

Gingrich claims his tough stance is part of a key question going into the 2012 elections: “Do you want to move towards American exceptionalism, reassert the Constitution, reassert the nature of America, or do you, in fact, want to become a secular, European, sort of beaurocratic socialist society?”

Ha ha, Newtie is so much smarter than an eighth-grade civics textbook. Federal judges aren’t there to “assert the Constitution,” they are there to make sure America isn’t France, or be thrown in jail. [TPM]

http://wonkette.com/458471/newt-gingric ... ore-458471

Here's somebody else who ain't a Newt fan:

WASHINGTON -- Newt Gingrich has spent the past couple of weeks near the top of the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, but he has already been counted out as an option by conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who said Gingrich too frequently makes "wild overstatements" that cost him credibility within his own party.

In an interview with the WMAL Morning Majority, Coulter compared Gingrich to two popular Tea Party luminaries who managed to excite their conservative bases and win GOP nominations for US Senate in Nevada and Delaware, only to see their momentum fade quickly at general election time.
Related Links

"They ended up losing, and they should have been easy wins for Republicans. I see Newt Gingrich as the Sharron Angle or Christine O'Donnell of the national party," said Coulter, who maintained that Gingrich "does not have a prayer of a chance in a general election, and I think this is the most important election of our lifetimes."

http://wmal.com/Article.asp?id=2357542

Gingrich makes statements too outrageous for even Ann Coulter

Dave, when you've got George Will and Peggy Noonan on one end, and Ann Coulter and Glen Beck on the other, all singing out of the same hymnal about a candidate, and their chances of winning the election, that ought to tell you something...

That doesn't happen every day....

Lord Jim wrote:Gingrich makes statements too outrageous for even Ann Coulter

Hahaha, that was my first reaction too.

" ... I see Newt Gingrich as the Sharron Angle or Christine O'Donnell of the national party," said Coulter,

He's a chicken-bartering masturbation witch?

Just crazy as a loon.

Newt has a problem with filtering. He is a super intellegent guy with lots of ideas, he just needs to be able to filter what he says.

Next is the latest non-Romney. We've gone through numerous non-romneys going into the lead and Mitt can't get past the 20% mark. Unfortunately he will be the next milqtoast McCain/Dole nominee. But he is clearly not the choice of the base since they've been searching for anyone else.

If only Barack Obama had had the sense to become a Republican (like Colin Powell, e.g.), the GOP could have easily explained away and dismissed their relatively minor disagreements with him and he'd be their PERFECT candidate...

It's known as "Blitherer's Disease," and was coined by Humorist Dave Barry. It is characterized by a defect in the filter that most people have between their brain and their lips - the one that prevents you from saying, on meeting Aunt Sadie for the first time, "Jesus Christ are you FAT!"

Not always bad, it has made Howard Stern a gazillionaire.

Ann Coulter is opposed to Mr. Newt because she does not see him as "reliably Conservative," and she uses her usual take-no-prisoners approach to condemning him.

Keep in mind that in her eyes, his biggest "fault" is that he occasionally cooperated with Democrats, and supported initiatives that the most Right Wing Republicans found distasteful. If it is "breaking gridlock" that you seek, there is no one on either side with a better record of working across the aisle.

But it is truly amazing that Republicans can so easily dismiss Newt's amazing accomplishments. He single-handedly broke the Democrats' 40-year stranglehold on the House of Representatives. Before his "Contract with America" Republicans had about as good a chance of taking the House as a Republican would have running for mayor of Chicago. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the balanced budgets that Democrats love crediting (absurdly) to Bill Clinton. He forced Clinton to sign welfare reform by shoving it right up his ass on the eve of the '96 election. Clinton had claimed to want welfare reform, but had refused to sign it previously.

Compared to these accomplishments, what has Romney done? Perry? Obama? Paul?(!)

And yet he played his cards so badly that he managed to get Clinton re-elected in 1996, when he should have been on the ropes. It was also the first time in 60 years when a sitting president's party gained seats in the House in his re-election year.

He single-handedly broke the Democrats' 40-year stranglehold on the House of Representatives. Before his "Contract with America" Republicans had about as good a chance of taking the House as a Republican would have running for mayor of Chicago. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the balanced budgets that Democrats love crediting (absurdly) to Bill Clinton. He forced Clinton to sign welfare reform by shoving it right up his ass on the eve of the '96 election.

Look Dave, I certainly give Gingrich props for his accomplishments. Some of them were historic.

But as Scooter points out, the two times he was a central issue on the national ballot, (in '96 and '98) he severely damaged the GOP. (Well I remember the way Dick Morris and the rest of Team Clinton tied Gingrich around Bob Dole's neck in '96)

In addition to his accomplishments, he made politically reckless and foolish decisions; (like the government shutdown) got himself ensnared in corruption charges, and after just four years, had so alienated the Republican Congressional Caucus that he resigned as Speaker rather than face certain defeat for the post at the hands of his own GOP colleagues.

In any event, the question isn't "Who accomplished the most in the mid 90s?"

The question is "Who has the best chance to defeat Barack Obama in 2012?"

And the answer to that second question sure ain't Newt Gingrich....

I saw Gingrich on the news this morning whining about all the negative ads aimed at him in Iowa...(kind of funny coming from a guy who once sent out a memo to GOP candidates advising them to call their opponents "traitors")

I'm not surprised he's unhappy about it... the two most recent Iowa polls now have him back in the low teens...the most recent one has him dropping to fourth place behind Rick Perry

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -1588.html

But the advertising in Iowa doesn't explain his drop in New Hampshire, where the latest poll has him back down by 18 points, 35-17....

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -1581.html

Or the two latest national polls that show him in a tie with Romney at 28-28 and 30-30 (At one point in early December, Gingrich had a 17 point lead, and for the first half of the month most polls showed him ahead of Romney by double digits)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... html#polls

There haven't been polls taken in South Carolina or Florida since early December but I'd be very surprised if the next ones to come out in those states don't show similar trends....

The fact is that Gingrich is a candidate who is flawed in a whole host of ways, both in terms of the enormous amount of baggage he brings, and the way in which he projects and conducts himself. As I said, he simply does not wear the spotlight well, and his decline in support can be plotted almost exactly along with the increased media attention and scrutiny he has received.

The great Thomas Sowell provides his take on the subject. Even though I've not been a great Newt fan for the last few years, as usual, he provides some good points to think about.

The Past and the Present

By Thomas Sowell


If Newt Gingrich were being nominated for sainthood, many of us would vote very differently from the way we would vote if he were being nominated for a political office.

What the media call Gingrich's "baggage" concerns largely his personal life and the fact that he made a lot of money running a consulting firm after he left Congress. This kind of stuff makes lots of talking points that we will no doubt hear, again and again, over the next weeks and months.

But how much weight should we give to this stuff when we are talking about the future of a nation?

This is not just another election and Barack Obama is not just another president whose policies we may not like. With all of President Obama's broken promises, glib demagoguery and cynical political moves, one promise he has kept all too well. That was his boast on the eve of the 2008 election: "We are going to change the United States of America."

Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster.

Internationally, it is worse. A president who has pulled the rug out from under our allies, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, tried to cozy up to our enemies, and has bowed low from the waist to foreign leaders certainly has not represented either the values or the interests of America. If he continues to do nothing that is likely to stop terrorist-sponsoring Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the consequences can be beyond our worst imagining.

Against this background, how much does Newt Gingrich's personal life matter, whether we accept his claim that he has now matured or his critics' claim that he has not? Nor should we sell the public short by saying that they are going to vote on the basis of tabloid stuff or media talking points, when the fate of this nation hangs in the balance.

Even back in the 19th century, when the scandal came out that Grover Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock — and he publicly admitted it — the voters nevertheless sent him to the White House, where he became one of the better presidents.

Do we wish we had another Ronald Reagan? We could certainly use one. But we have to play the hand we were dealt. And the Reagan card is not in the deck.

While the televised debates are what gave Newt Gingrich's candidacy a big boost, concrete accomplishments when in office are the real test. Gingrich engineered the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 40 years — followed by the first balanced budget in 40 years. The media called it "the Clinton surplus" but all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was Speaker of the House.

Speaker Gingrich also produced some long overdue welfare reforms, despite howls from liberals that the poor would be devastated. But nobody makes that claim any more.

Did Gingrich ruffle some feathers when he was Speaker of the House? Yes, enough for it to cost him that position. But he also showed that he could produce results.

In a world where we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available, the question is whether Newt Gingrich is better than Barack Obama — and better than Mitt Romney.

Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish as governor of Massachusetts, compared to what Gingrich accomplished as Speaker of the House? When you don't accomplish much, you don't ruffle many feathers. But is that what we want?

Can you name one important positive thing that Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts? Can anyone? Does a candidate who represents the bland leading the bland increase the chances of victory in November 2012? A lot of candidates like that have lost, from Thomas E. Dewey to John McCain.

Those who want to concentrate on the baggage in Newt Gingrich's past, rather than on the nation's future, should remember what Winston Churchill said: "If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." If that means a second term for Barack Obama, then it means lost big time.

Like I said before, Romney will most likely be the next McCain/Dole milqtoast candidate. Except this time will fewer accomplishments.

B-b-b-but, he saved the Salt Lake City Olympics! Singlehandedly! Never mind that they were mired in the worst corruption since, well, since forever.

I too heard Gingrich on NPR whining about negative politics this morning - 'do you want politics as usual, or the person who has stayed consistently positive in this campaign?' he asks.

I almost choked.

WTF?!?!?

This is coming from THE guy who set the negative politics train to full speed during the 'Republican Revolution.'

Arrogant, hypocritical ASS.



Meh. Me no vote in 2012. bother?

New poll results in from South Carolina.....

Gingrich leads by 12, down from a 23 point margin at the beginning of December...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -1590.html

So in the face of an unprecedented, coordinated attack by people who have uniformly praised him in the past, he is still pretty much the leading candidate overall. Iowa and New Hampshire are each unique, and uniquely silly, with relevance than can only be known in retrospect.

His pariah-zation in the 90's is yet another example of how the MSM, in conjunction with the Dem Party can turn pretty much anyone into personna non grata. He pleaded guilty to exactly one charge of misconduct and resigned. All else was trumped up nonsense.

Consider that Mr. Newt is now being characterized as "whining" about negative campaigning. With multiple candidates announcing that they intend to spend an aggregate tens of millions of dollars in the next couple weeks for the sole purpose of tearing him down, when would it be appropriate to "whine"?

The longer it goes on, the more I like him.

And I think it's delicious that blind LW partisans (like those who pose here) HATE him. This will surely work in his favor in the general election. He will cut Barry to shreds in any and all "debates." I like it.

Dave is under the delusion that the average American thinks like him.

Perhaps they did...









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