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Newt & the GOP’s Lloyd Doblerization

I hate to smear the name of the sainted Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) from “Say Anything,” but Matt Schmitt forces me to it when he explains why conservatives see Romney’s flip-flops as evidence of bad character, but give Gingrich a pass. Excerpt: Gingrich did more than just move the Republican party to the right, as he […]

I hate to smear the name of the sainted Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) from “Say Anything,” but Matt Schmitt forces me to it when he explains why conservatives see Romney’s flip-flops as evidence of bad character, but give Gingrich a pass. Excerpt:

Gingrich did more than just move the Republican party to the right, as he built power for his congressional allies beginning in the mid-1980s and culminating in his four tumultuous years as Speaker of the House; he brought to the party a “say anything” style of politics that lives on long after his heyday, and that makes it a tactically formidable opposition force. While traditional conservatism had a stern attachment to continuity and an “eat your peas” commitment to principles even when they came at a short-term political cost, Gingrich was untethered, content to propose massive social initiatives—the most famous being to give a laptop computer to every schoolchild, back when laptops cost $5,000—at the same time that he would propose to shut down large government agencies and massively chop government spending. He was able to create a broad appeal by combining his optimistic, techno-visionary liberalism with angry shrink-government conservatism. His secret: He didn’t really mean any of it. He didn’t stick with any initiative long enough to confront the conflicts and contradictions between them.

I think this is another way of saying that both of them may be phonies, but Gingrich’s theatricality makes him come off as an authentic phony, hence the Newt-love. It’s all theater, sleight-of-hand. “Say Anything Conservatism” is not grounded in any principle or policy, only the naked pursuit of power and, in Gingrich’s case, self-aggrandizement. It is one thing — and a conservative thing — to possess a mind nimble and shrewd enough to know when one should compromise one’s principles for the sake of the greater good, or for a long-term goal; it is quite another to wake up in a new world every day, and to assume that whatever has crossed one’s mind (and then one’s lips, for one suspects Gingrich has no unvoiced thoughts) corresponds to reality, or principle, or any fixed thing.

UPDATE: Gingrich is 15 points — fifteen points — ahead of second-place Romney in a new nationwide Gallup poll, 37 points to 22 points. No top GOP candidate to this point has led his second-place rival by so many points. Everyone else is in the single digits. It really does look like the Republican voters are coalescing behind Gingrich, with less than a month to go until the Iowa caucuses. Anything can happen, obviously, and with Gingrich, it probably will. Still, if he can avoid running his mouth or any devastating oppo dumps from Team Romney, this looks like Gingrich’s race to lose. If I’m Obama, I’m not believing my good luck.

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