Peggy Noonan writes as favorable an assessment of the Newt candidacy as a reasonable person could. She doesn’t make much of his personal failings or, as Mr. Ceaser puts it, the way he’s made his living over the last decade. It’s just that people who know him and have worked with him think he’s too unstable and self-obsessive to be president. His life is a walk on the wild side, and there are plenty in the know who know too much about him to trust or respect them. That’s not the case with the people who know Romney.
Meanwhile, ordinary people who don’t know him are looking for a brilliant and inspired fighter, and they remember with selective nostalgia what we’re undeniably Newt’s glory days. In my view, the most reasonable case for Newt is that reasonable policy could emerge when he and Bill Clinton sat down together, maybe becuase of their shared intelligence, flexible principles, and personal amorality. But Newt played Speaker in those days, not President. His personal compass doesn’t even work as well as Bill’s, and Peggy is right that he might impose his Churchillian sense of self-importance on the world in needlessly grandiose and otherwise dangerous ways. Bill, the critics say, made his administration into a vacation from history, but better a vacation than playing world-historical just to make your mark.
December 9th, 2011 | 9:54 am
Edit…edit…edit!
December 9th, 2011 | 12:11 pm
After reading this post (not Noonan), and knowing of no reason to disagree with its assessment of the man’s character, I actually find myself thinking, “Hmm…given a Newt v. Obama choice, I would have to think seriously about voting for the latter.”
It’s so horrible a thought that I almost cannot admit it to myself. The prospect of weighing A) Obama’s certain constitutional and economic destruction, versus a roll of the dice that B) Newt’s openly deranged self-regard would not precipitate some crisis, is a most unpleasant one. I would likely eventually vote Gingrich, I think, but I cannot say for sure.
December 9th, 2011 | 12:51 pm
Dr. Lawler, really!
This isn’t like you: “His personal compass doesn’t even work as well as Bill’s, …”
While I agree that Newt has baggage, and he’s a scalawag, the fact is President Clinton leaves something of a slime trail wherever he goes and I’m pretty sure Bubba’s ethics/morals are far worse then Newt’s ever were.
And, let’s remember the ideas of salvation and redemption, both concepts you’ve written a great deal about. Newt, as we all are, is a sinner, however he’s confessed to a theophanic experience that resulted in his joining the Catholic faith. Maybe we give the guy the benefit of the doubt?
December 9th, 2011 | 1:48 pm
Sorry for the typos, I may or may not have corrected all of them. Bill, to begin with, manages to have the same wife despite it all.
December 9th, 2011 | 8:35 pm
Didn’t Reagan have two wives? Why is this really an issue? If chooing who ought to be Prez on being a good hubby BO would win in a heart beat… please. Its about the issues and the big electoral issue is healthcare and Mitt R has absolutely no creditability on this issue in that his creation–mass care–was the model for Obamacare that came out the whole Democratic House Legisative Process….
December 9th, 2011 | 8:53 pm
Clifford, if credibility on health care policy (and Medicare, which is a big part of it) is your top priority then Gingrich is at least as bad. Both guys were for a mandate and Gingrich was for a federal mandate. I look forward to Gingrich explaining to the general public how he decided that a federal insurance mandate is unconstitutional after supporting one. Also as Yuval Levin pointed out at NRO, Gingrich’s Medicare reform plan is a mirage while Romney’s is pretty good (with a few very important missing details – yes, soft bigotry of low expectations.)
Romney’s explanation of the difference between Romneycare and Obamacare doesn’t convince me, but Gingrich isn’t better (something along the lines of “Sure I WANTED a federal mandate, but he GOT a state mandate.”)
So this is where we are. Santorum?
December 9th, 2011 | 9:04 pm
I’ve always thought there was something perverse about the relationship. And, while he had one wife who apparently had no pride, he was something of a satyr, not to mention accused rapist.
I really do think the rank-and-file want a good fight this time.
December 9th, 2011 | 9:16 pm
“I really do think the rank-and-file want a good fight this time.” I think that mistaking dishonesty and grandiosity for toughness would have serious consequences. I think there is this idea that if only so-and-so were mean enough and ruff and tuff enough the Democrats would get beaten (I think that was the single biggest driving factor behind the short-lived Trump boomlet of ealier in the year.) No, it would mostly just give some people a temporary gratification of their malice.
We are in a place where toughness means (among other things) having the seriousness and discipline to articulate a series of policies that address our problems and, at the same time, explain why we need those policies to that fraction of the population that isn’t sold on Obama, but doesn’t hate him either.
December 9th, 2011 | 11:03 pm
Pete you can assail Newt all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that most see Mitt as the East Coast Republican version of Algore.
The GOP rank-and-file want someone who will challenge our Kenyan-Marist president and not wet his pants when informed that Barry is our second black president.
I don’t know if Newt has what it takes. I know Mitt doesn’t.
December 9th, 2011 | 11:30 pm
“doesn’t change the fact that most see Mitt as the East Coast Republican version of Algore.” Well I can see that what with Romneys past support of cap-and-trade unlike Newt Ging…oh, nevermind. I remember reading somewhere that Ginrich and Gore were friendly back in the day and both thought highly of the Tofflers. Thanks for reminding me.
“The GOP rank-and-file want someone who will challenge our Kenyan-Marist president and not wet his pants when informed that Barry is our second black president.” That tone is good for losing forty or more states (and deserving to.)
December 10th, 2011 | 8:51 am
The idea is that people see POSSIBILITIES in a redeemed Newt but, sadly, none in a statist Mitt.
If Newt has the chutzpha to take Barry on directly with statistics on unemployment, food stamps, and welfare expansion, the decline in business, and the related loss of jobs, Barry’s efforts to halt the Marcellus play, close down coal mines and coal fired power plants, etc. (c’mon Pete this is the most target rich environment ever provided a political employment) then we’re talking political tsunami.
If I were Newt all that I would talk about is the economic suffering caused by the regime’s leftist policies that have resulted in Depression levels of unemployment.
Newt’s campaign slogans: “Vote Democrat and Starve” or “Let’s End Obama’s Depression.”
December 10th, 2011 | 9:20 am
“The idea is that people see POSSIBILITIES in a redeemed Newt ” At what point exactly was Gingrich “redeemed” after his lies about his work with Freddie Mac? That was last month. I don’t see why anyone would find “Newt cap-and-trade,, federal purchase mandate, Freddie Mac mouthpiece, Gingrich” any more or less statist than Romney or find Gingrich’s conversions any more sincere.
“If Newt has the chutzpha to take Barry on directly with statistics…” Any conceivable Republican candidate (even Huntsman) will be doing all of that. Based on past history, there is no reason to believe that Gingrich will be better than Romney (or Santorum actually) in making that case to swing voters. He has no experience running in elections with non-right-leaning electorates and when he had a sustained national profile he was not a liked figure by nonconservatives.
December 10th, 2011 | 10:54 am
Pete, Robert isn’t running for prez.
Clifford, it isn’t just the slimy divorce. If it were just that, but the reports of those who worked with him were basically positive, I and many other social cons would be ready to back him as the least of all evils, as the best political chance to beat Barry. And maybe we would demand and get a big apology about his marriage conduct.
No, it’s the report of the vast majority of those who have worked with him, ON HIS SIDE, that his character is inherently unreliable and his treatment of others is inherently inconsiderate.
December 10th, 2011 | 11:24 am
Pete, I love your analysis, particularly the economic calculations. However, politics isn’t all numbers, there’s a spiritual aspect that is the ground of my point re: the Newt.
If Newt’s really had a spiritual/salvific experience and has turned his ‘life over to the Lord’, as our Evangelical friends are want to say, then he is a ‘new creature in the Lord,’ as they also say. Consequently your constant and accurate carping about Newt’s checkered past may have no relation with the NEW NEWT? That’s kinda the POSSIBILITY I was talking about. Remember, through God all things, even the redemption of Newt Gingrich, is possible.
So, my critique of your analysis is that you (sadly, like too many Moderns) have gone and rejected Newt’s soteriological possibilities in favor of utilizing ‘direct human action’ in place of what Voegelin refers to as ‘the expectation of divine intervention.’
Actually, in opening the possibility of ‘divine intervention’ (metastatic faith) I’m going agaisnt Voegelin’s position, and allowing for the Creator to chose to insert Himself, in one form or another (miracle?).
My only criticism of your remarkably intelligent analysis is that you’ve, perhaps, allowed yourself to be seduced by modernity’s ‘process of immanentization’ resulting in a rather all-consuming and virulent secularism that not only rejects the Divine, but mocks God as well. The result is a condemnation of the traditional nature of the divine order found in the Word, Aquinas, Augustine, etc.
December 10th, 2011 | 2:31 pm
I can’t see can’t see Huntsman having that same pit bull determination that Newt has to bring the battle to BO. This was the flaw of McCain’s campaign it did not really play to win, it played to the opintion makers and their expectation of fair play. BO and his proxies wont and this is why I can’t see someone like Huntsman or Robo-candidate Mitt fight on the same street-fighter level. I think the conventional wisdom that this will turn off independants might be mistaken. I think a energetic fighter going about BO like a pit bull doing what Newt said he would do.. follow BO everwhere he went and have the constant campaign… and you will see the clear difference. I don’t see other candidates having the fire in their belly to fight to win… and might think that they can’t loose to BO and end up loosing.
December 10th, 2011 | 4:58 pm
Carl, I have fewer objections to Bob running for President. Also, as Clifford shows, the idea that making “street-fighter level” attacks on Obama and that this makes Gingrich somehow a strong anti-Obama messenger is fairly widespread and (imho) a dangerous error.
Bob,
“If Newt’s really had a spiritual/salvific experience and has turned his ‘life over to the Lord’, as our Evangelical friends are want to say, then he is a ‘new creature in the Lord,’ as they also say.”
Is there any reason to believe that this experience has happened in the last month after he lied about Freddie Mac?
I hope for everybody’s salvation and that includes Barney Frank. That doesn’t mean I’ll be voting for him for President even if he should announce a conversion experience. I also don’t expect I’ll be voting for our current (Christian) President either.
Clifford,
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