The end of Newt

By Rod Dreher • December 28, 2011, 8:08 PM

Is this the craziest Republican primary campaign, or what? Now Newt Gingrich has collapsed in the Iowa polls. With voting there only six days away, Newt will be lucky to come in third. Right now, it looks like Romney, Paul, and Santorum, in that order. Meanwhile, Gingrich’s commanding lead over Romney nationally has also collapsed. They’re now tied in a Gallup poll. Gingrich desperately needed a win in Iowa to sustain his campaign. He’s not going to get it there, and he’s definitely not going to get it in New Hampshire, which Romney’s going to win easily. Why would anybody give money to a campaign that can’t win Iowa or New Hampshire, is fading nationally, and that is so badly organized it couldn’t even get on the primary ballot in Virginia?

Let us bow our heads and utter words of prayer in remembrance of the Gingrich campaign.

And let us endeavor to enjoy such precious moments as Speaker Gingrich has to give us for as long as he can keep going in this thing. Like today’s insight, for instance, in which he said his and Callista’s luxury cruise of the Greek islands was actually training for fiscal leadership:

“Ironically, being in Greece during the Greek crisis was very helpful and gave me a much deeper perspective of how hard this was going to be.”

Ironically, drinking that $150 bottle of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame on my 10th wedding anniversary gave me a much deeper perspective of the physics of carbonated liquids.

16 Responses to The end of Newt

johan says:

December 28, 2011 at 8:43 pm

I’m getting the sense that Republicans who are actually serious about winning are coalescing around Romney. Other candidates have taken themselves out of the game with their actions (Cain, apparently) or words (Gingrich, Perry, et al).
Franklin Evans says:

December 28, 2011 at 8:44 pm

You know, Rod, that we have the opportunity to create and spread one of the more* plausible conspiracy theories ever. With the regular and almost predictable self-immolation of every “front-runner” Republican candidate, it just seems all to reasonable to speculate that some Democrat sleepers infiltrated the RNC and set this all up.

You heard/saw it here first, folks. The Republican presidential primaries are a Democrat sham to ensure the next election.

* I think there was only one other plausible conspiracy theory ever.
Roland de Chanson says:

December 28, 2011 at 10:11 pm

I am shocked, shocked, that in this season of Christmastide, Christ’s Mass time, that our Working Boy should promulgate two, count ‘em, two blatant heresies. Well, maybe not heresies, but, heterodox opinions. Well, maybe not heterodox opinions, but misapprehensions. Well, maybe not misapprehensions, but, oh damn. Whatever.

First would have been that Iowa and New Hampshire (do provincial districts of such untoward nuncupation actually exist in this republic?) should matter. Why not give everyone the chance to vote simultaneously rather than having been influenced by bucolic bumpkins and horsefly-bitten yokels? Num Athenae Boeotiae obsecutae sunt?

Second would have been that Champagne is made by a secondary fermentation in the bottle, la méthode Champenoise, that is, by the addition of sugar, and is not a “carbonated liquid” like, errr, Unitedstatesian “beer”. (I do not deprectate hereby the craft breweries whose offerings put to shame the typical US mass-produced Sprudelwasser.)

Just wanted to clear those points up. I’m not sure whether I did. Merry Christmas to the Dreher family and all the best in your new abode in the coming year and for many happy and prosperous future years.
MH - secular misanthropist says:

December 28, 2011 at 10:14 pm

In the 2012 Republican primary, everyone will be the front runner for 15 minutes. I should peak just after the Florida ballot, but before super Tuesday.
eep says:

December 28, 2011 at 10:34 pm

I kind of wanted to see Gingrich try to implement space mirrors.

I’ve had this feeling that popular Republicans like Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Chris Christie stayed out of the race because of the present condition of the country.
Wile E. Quixote says:

December 28, 2011 at 10:44 pm

Well I for one am disappointed. The Gingrich campaign was pure comedy gold. I was hoping that he’d hold on until after the South Carolina primaries before going down in flames.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 29, 2011 at 12:24 am

Why would anyone serious about winning look to an empty shirt / talking head like Romney? He’s not a winner, he’s just a more durable loser. A decent Republican might be Rep. Thomas Petri of Wisconsin, But you know why Mitch Daniels isn’t running this year? He knows its a losing year for Republicans. If he runs, it will be in 2016.
Jaybird says:

December 29, 2011 at 9:08 am

But you know why Mitch Daniels isn’t running this year? He knows its a losing year for Republicans. If he runs, it will be in 2016.

Same for Chris Christie.
Todd Flowerday says:

December 29, 2011 at 10:01 am

“The Gingrich campaign was pure comedy gold.”

Indeed. The whole field. And I don’t even have to tune in The Daily Show to get my daily yuk-yuks.
Burrhus says:

December 29, 2011 at 10:07 am

You know, Rod, that we have the opportunity to create and spread one of the more* plausible conspiracy theories ever. With the regular and almost predictable self-immolation of every “front-runner” Republican candidate, it just seems all to reasonable to speculate that some Democrat sleepers infiltrated the RNC and set this all up.

You heard/saw it here first, folks. The Republican presidential primaries are a Democrat sham to ensure the next election.

Burrhus: cf. Wendell Willkie 1940
tbraton says:

December 29, 2011 at 10:59 am

“Why would anyone serious about winning look to an empty shirt / talking head like Romney? He’s not a winner, he’s just a more durable loser. A decent Republican might be Rep. Thomas Petri of Wisconsin,”

Exactly. Why would we look to an “empty shirt/talking head like Romney” when we already have one in the White House? After all, the exerience of being a community organizer is the same as founding and running a very successful investing company, isn’t it? Obama has demonstrated through his investing of government money in firms like Solyndra and General Motors that he knows how to invest money just like Romney. After all, he ‘s the smartest guy in the room.
MH - secular misanthropist says:

December 29, 2011 at 11:42 am

I remember when the conventional wisdom was that the 92 election would be a losing year for Democrats. Didn’t work out that way, so it is too early to call this election for Obama.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 29, 2011 at 1:16 pm

Honestly, its too soon to call ANY election a year ahead of time, because the people who REALLY decide will change their minds dozens of times before October. Some will make up their minds the morning of the election. Those who are already committed form the foundation on which those with no particular commitment stand to make the decisive choices.

tbraton, community organizing is NOTHING like found an running an investment company, which is one reason I have more confidence in Obama. Romney didn’t create much of anything, he just bought and sold and skimmed off the difference. That is one of the pathetically degenerate features of American capitalism today.
Noah says:

December 29, 2011 at 9:31 pm

A decent Republican might be Rep. Thomas Petri of Wisconsin

His career grade from NumbersUSA is a B+. His major deviation from immigration restriction has been cosponsorship of a bill (not yet brought to a vote) to give legal status to some illegal aliens working in agriculture. For the most part, though, he has voted to limit the flow of foreigners and enforce laws on illegal residence.

Thanks for supporting the cause, Siarlys.
tbraton says:

December 30, 2011 at 12:12 pm

“tbraton, community organizing is NOTHING like found an running an investment company, which is one reason I have more confidence in Obama. Romney didn’t create much of anything, he just bought and sold and skimmed off the difference. That is one of the pathetically degenerate features of American capitalism today.”

I would expect no less from an ardent Obama supporter, as you have been since you first started posting on TAC last spring, Siarlys. (I may be mistaken, but I believe that I first encountered you when you were defending Obama’s war against Libya. Not surprising that someone who can’t perceive the difference between a community organizer and a venture capitalist can distinguish the unprovoked war against Libya from the unprovoked war against Iraq.)

BTW buying and selling and skimming off the difference (sometimes referred to as “profit”) is the essence of the capitalist system. Investing in losing ventures like Solyndra and General Motors where there is not only no profit to “skim off” but losses that have to be made up is not generally recommended as a wise use of money, private or government.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

December 30, 2011 at 8:28 pm

You’re a one-issue guy Noah… no, not really, but in this last comment. My union legislative director noted a few years ago that we do support Republicans, when we can find any who support transit, and Petri is one of the rare ones who does. Different strokes for different folks.

tbraton, you’ll have to provide a semantical explanation of how I have NOT distinguished between a venture capitalist and a community organizer. The difference seems vast to me, and I thought it did to you also. I won’t rehash my positions on a variety of other subjects, merely because you wish to imply that what I do, in fact, believe and assert, somehow discredits me in your own blinded eyes.

I have come to the conclusion that return on investment is justified by deferred gratification, more than “risk-taking.” There is an element of risk in deferred gratification, but it is secondary. Starting at a very simple level of economics: if you grow potatoes, eat the smaller ones, use the larger ones for seed crop, over the years, you get more and larger potatoes. Or, take some of your free time this year to build a dam, next year to build an irrigation system, and in years three through ten, you reap the benefit of more abundant crops for less effort per pound of food.

Flash forward to a modern capitalist economy: When someone has a NEW idea, for a NEW product, something people can actually USE, something that makes their life better, something tangible, and devotes eighteen hours a day to developing it, saves all their pennies to pay for initial production facilities, reinvests most of the revenue in being able to produce more and better, that person is entitled to a comfortable return on their investment.

On the other hand, modern finance makes it possible for someone to simply buy low and sell high what OTHERS have put that kind of effort into, then grin at the camera and say “What a good boy am I.”

Both are called “profit.” One is worthy of praise and appreciation. The other is worthy of the words that the Bible and the Qu’ran apply to “usury,” whether or not money was directly loaned out at interest. Loaning money at interest CAN be a form of deferred gratification, worthy of some return, if it enables others to develop a worthy idea into a product that is useful to the entire community.