Comments on: Take a Walk on the Newt Side?

By: Pete Spiliakos

Pete Spiliakos — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:58:08 +0000

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,

By: Clifford

Clifford — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:31:10 +0000

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.

By: Robert Cheeks

Robert Cheeks — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:24:42 +0000

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.

By: Carl Eric Scott

Carl Eric Scott — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:54:11 +0000

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.

By: Pete Spiliakos

Pete Spiliakos — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:20:57 +0000

“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.

By: Robert Cheeks

Robert Cheeks — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:51:36 +0000

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.”

By: Pete Spiliakos

Pete Spiliakos — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 04:30:50 +0000

“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.)

By: Robert Cheeks

Robert Cheeks — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 04:03:51 +0000

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.

By: Pete Spiliakos

Pete Spiliakos — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:16:32 +0000

“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.

By: Robert Cheeks

Robert Cheeks — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:04:14 +0000

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.