Newt vs. Mitt: The Ugly Season
Newt Gingrich’s surge to success in South Carolina has surely brought joy to the Obama White House.
For his 12-point victory ensures the fight for the GOP nomination will not end soon and will get nastier. Indeed, it already has. Whether Newt or Mitt Romney emerges victorious, the candidate who comes out of the Republican convention will be bruised and bloodied.
Consider, first, Newt.
According to a Fox News poll, 56 percent of the American people have an unfavorable opinion of the former speaker. Only 27 percent hold a favorable opinion. By two to one, the nation has a negative view of Newt. And as Newt has been a national figure for two decades, to reverse the impression he has left on the country would require an immense volume of positive media, free and bought.
And Newt is getting neither.
Now, in Florida, Romney has decided to tear the scab off, and 24 hours after his South Carolina defeat, he is busy at it.
Newt, said Mitt, “was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. … And at the end of four years … he was a failed leader, and he had to resign in disgrace. … He was investigated (by) an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that, and then … 88 percent of his (fellow) Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich.”
“What’s (Newt) been doing for 15 years?” Mitt asked. “He’s been working as a lobbyist … and selling influence around Washington.”
Mitt did not bring up Newt’s three wives and the tawdry tale told by second wife Marianne to ABC. Yet the super PACs of the Democratic Party will make sure the women of America know how Newt treated his first two wives, should he become the nominee.
Yet Mitt has his own problems, after his worst week in South Carolina.
By going negative on Newt, he will drive Newt’s negatives higher. But attack politics polarizes a party and drives up the negatives of the attacker, as well. The Eagle Scout image of Mitt will suffer — both from what Newt is doing to him and from what he feels he must do to Newt.
Rep. Dick Gephardt decided he had to take down Howard Dean, who was riding high in Iowa in 2004. Gephardt ended up taking both of them down. John Kerry evaded the bloodletting, won the caucuses and cruised to the nomination.
Mitt has suffered, too, from the malicious portrayal of his days at Bain Capital by Gingrich and Rick Perry, who portrayed Bain as a vulture sitting on a tree limb, looking for sick companies to swoop down on, pick the carcass clean and leave a skeleton.
Romney’s revelations last week that he pays only 15 percent of his income in federal taxes, that he has investments in the Caymans, that the $375,000 he earned in speaking fees did not amount to much and that he enjoys firing people — even if it was insurance companies — all feed into the caricature of a country-club Republican with nothing in common with people who live from paycheck to paycheck.
Wealth is not necessarily an impediment to political success. FDR, a Hudson Valley aristocrat, and JFK were men of wealth who did less to earn their money than Mitt did to earn his. But they carried it more easily.
When JFK was being attacked because his father, who amassed his pile in stocks and liquor, had poured huge sums into the West Virginia primary on his son’s behalf, Sen. Kennedy joked about it, telling the Gridiron Club that his father had sent him a telegram just before the primary: “Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.”
It is hard to recall a primary season that got this ugly this early. Words like dishonest, liar and corrupt, and phrases like serial hypocrite have come not just from independent and unaccountable super PACs but from the paid media of the campaigns and the candidates themselves.
The primary season that much resembles this one is 1964. Then, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, icon of the Eastern liberal establishment that had imposed nominees Wendell Willkie, Tom Dewey (twice) and Dwight Eisenhower on the party, lost the California primary and the nomination to Barry Goldwater.
Speaking to that divided convention, Rockefeller was booed and jeered from the balconies when he called on the delegates to condemn the John Birch Society equally with the Ku Klux Klan and Communist Party.
The party never came together that fall. Goldwater suffered a defeat unequaled since Alf Landon carried two states in 1936. The ideological divide between Romney and Newt is not nearly so great as that between Goldwater and Rockefeller, but the personal animosity is certainly approaching that.
With the Tea Party recoiling from Romney and rallying to Newt, and regular Republicans coalescing around Mitt, with dozens of primaries and caucuses ahead, Tampa just might end up looking like the Cow Palace in ’64.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” Copyright 2012 Creators.com.
The difference, Pat, is that while Goldwater had the nomination sewn up when he arrived at the Cow Palace in 1964. The growing likelihood this year is that no one will be in that position. The contention of this year’s convention may more resemble that of 1976, only with more than two contenders.
Newt has fewer indiscretions than Kennedy and has a Kennedy-like ability to respond to critics and criticisms. In that sense, he overshadows Mitt.
When Mitt speaks, we wonder. When Newt speaks, we’re encouraged. Newt we know, ugly and all. Mitt is an enigma, a painting of how we wish things were to cover up what is.
If Newt continues to build on what he did in SC, the primary race is over and the rest is just campaigning for the presidency.
And I’m counting on that.
Yep.
But maybe more dangerous (to the party) and edifying:
The internal inconsistencies of what the Republican Party Stands for these days are up for inspection.
And, it ain’t just liberal versus conservative, as in the days of Goldwater and Rockefeller.
Both Gingrich and Romney got caught up in various issues which looked to be evolving a certain direction — but then went extinct — the political sands shifted under their feet.
Global warming, some sort of health mandate, and Big Government Conservatism in general.
Bush isn’t talked about, these days, and that goes beyond his dismal approval ratings at the end. Bush discredited the Rovian “durable governing majority” playbook of outdoing the Democrats.
Strangely, the policy which was most repudiated by the general electorate, was Bush’s War Hawk ideology (most glaringly the ’06 House & Senate elections, but Bush barely squeaked by in ’04 mostly because of Iraq, and ’08 was as much about war as the economy).
Yet, this is the policy seemingly untouchable — certainly, that has been the political 2X4 taken to Ron Paul. It’s the establishment policy which has gripped the grass-roots.
The most politically disasterous policy is the one Bush policy that still grips the party by the throat.
Perhaps, that is why the establishment and it’s media enforcers are so determined to keep it that way.
It might be all it has left.
What a shame.
The clarity of the Ronald Reagan days are over.
Fine article. I would add that the Republican party’s woes are due to continue for some time because they are rooted not in personalities, but in the contradiction that festers at the heart of the mainstream Republican platform. This is the contradiction between the drives for limited government and for militarism — that is, an unbridled expansion of government’s police role both at home and abroad.
The “great man” or woman who is needed to unify the Republican party cannot emerge because a “great man” would never promote a self-undermining platform. Ron Paul, of course, stands apart in his refusal to do so, but he lacks the party support necessary to win. Until we expand such a base of support, GOP’s problems will continue.
How many millions of dollars have Sheldon Adelson and wife given to Newt Gingirch? Is it $15 million? Adelson wants the Palestinians to go away, leave, disappear.
Gingrich will say anything in order to win, and he is very adept at speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He has no ideology whatsoever, except that of an experienced, seasoned politician. He is the Republican Bill Clinton.
Romney isn’t much better, although he seems to understand capitalism. Both are war hawks, and believe that America’s mission is to “spread democracy”.
There is only one Constitutionalist in the race; only one conservative. Ron Paul has never wavered in his support and practice of the U.S. Constitution. His squeaky unpolished delivery worries some, although we have had other presidents who were not attractive orators.
Obama will lose against any of them. The electorate is sick of him, and are fed up with the results of his failed policies.
Four years or more of a Paul presidency would put this country right back on track.
Great men do not exist until after the fact. The same for parties.This sausage-making process has been going on since moment one of this republic and will long outlive all the carping in these comments plus those of PJB, who should know better having been around for Ronald Reagan. Did PJB have the same comments for RR in ’79? Newt or Mitt, both will do, although most Conservatives (not the libertarian/RHINO masthead) consider Newt a better champion.
Ennis P said it: “When Mitt speaks, we wonder. When Newt speaks, we’re encouraged.”
Mitt cannot speak the conservative’s language, because he hasn’t learned it by heart or by immersion in his political life. He’s never been a conservative, so he can’t articulate conservativism coherently. It’s like he’s using one of those auto-translators and it comes out like one of those spam messages. There’s a disconnect…a hint of insincerity, leaving a person feeling like he’s being played, given a line or a sales pitch. Maybe that comes from his training, knocking on doors delivering the Mormon message in his young years or selling Bain Capital’s services to wealthy investors. The result is that Mitt is always stammering, shifting, delivering soundbites and it’s painful to watch.
Newt is and always has been an economic and political conservative through and through, come hell or high water. He fought for conservative principles early, well, long, whatever the cost to his own political career. Evidently, his repentance and redemption from his personal sins have made him a social conservative as well. (See Jeffrey Lord’s article at the Spectator: Reagan’s Young Lieutenant – http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/24/reagans-young-lieutenant)
He speaks conservative fluently, comprehensively, historically, thoroughly. It’s his native language, only strengthened by maturity and spiritual redemption.
Listening to Newt articulate conservative principles is a joy. Listening to Mitt trying to act like a conservative is not.
PS – Newt’s thorough conservativism does not sit well with the powers that be in politics, finance or in some parts of the church for that matter. He has rebelled against their plans and control and too often proved ‘unreliable’ for their purposes. Just when they thought they had shut him down/out for good, here he is, in their faces, once again. Worse, no matter what they do, his popularity and polls keep rising.
As he said last Sunday after the win in South Carolina, ‘They are afraid of him and they should be.’
He terrifes the political establishment, and that is another reason he comforts and encourages conservatives.
Isn’t a contested nomination with a lively and heated debate soimething most people call democracy.
Haven’t we sacrificed 100,000s of thousands of our fellow citizens lives and trillions of our dollars to impose that form of choosing a country’s leaders around the world.
Just saying
I’m not sure that Romney should press the “Newt got the Boot” meme. Sure, it’s true, but it gives the former Speaker yet anothor opportunity to practice his political ju-jitsu. i.e., “You see, I’m really not a Washington insider, because the Washington insiders kicked me out!”
To me, that´s the Republican version of Michael Dukakis vs. Jesse Jackson in 1988. Comparing Gingrich and Romney to Goldwater and Rockfeller is offensive.
Please don’t promote Newt or Romney on this site. You do know that neither of them promote policies that are in keeping with paleoconservativism? They are leftists, statists. No, we don’t want either of them. Insider and chicken-hawk serial adulturer and third wave Reagan opponent Newt doesn’t inspire, neither does Kerry-esque Flip Flopney.
There is only one candidate who wouldn’t ignore the Constitution as these other neocon imposters would, Ron Paul
“Gingrich will say anything in order to win, and he is very adept at speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He has no ideology whatsoever, except that of an experienced, seasoned politician”
I think this is true of every candidate in the race with the exception of Paul and he has zero chance of winning. Whoever is inaugurated in Jan 2013, I guarantee he will be a lifelong politician who will say anything to get elected.
Enough praise for Pope Paul already!