GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Looking Toward 2008 – An Eye For Newt?

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I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking “Newt for President” for 2008.  Rich Lowry makes the case today over at NRO.

Gingrich is partly benefiting from a beneath-the-surface conservative exasperation with President Bush. In 2000, Bush represented a break from Gingrich’s brainy, hyperpartisan, government-cutting conservatism, for something more personable, more bipartisan and more comfortable with government. After six years of Bush, many conservatives are ready for a no-holds-barred, limited-government brainiac again.

I’m with Rich, everytime I see Newt Gingrich on television, he impresses me more.  And while I don’t think I ever considered myself a “Newt fan” when he was Speaker (Rich is right, his tenure was erratic at best!), I do think he is one of the few visionaries of the Republican Party.  He is a great communicator, excellent big picture thinker, and true American patriot.

I know, I know… he rubs people the wrong way.  Well, so does Hillary.  But unlike Hillary, the tone I hear from Newt makes me trust him more each time, and believe he’s matured as an American leader, not as a professional politician.

So while my personal vote is still with Rudy or Condi, I am also excited about the idea of Newt Gingrich running for President.  He would bring a level of intelligence and vision to the Republican Primary race that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

But as Rich points out,

Whatever happens, Gingrich stands to be the party’s most important intellectual table-setter. “Whoever wins,” says [former RNC Chairman Ed] Gillespie, “is going to have spent a lot of time talking about what Newt was talking about.” There are worse places for the party to look for a renewed agenda.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Comments

  1. He would certainly take the debate in a different direction… I’m tired of all the other wanna-be candidates trying to be NON-McCain. Newt will give lots of sound bites –he knows how to dramatize the public debate. And he can gauge the pulse of an average American voter standing 40 yards away with both hands in someone else’s pockets AND holding a microphone in an interview AND signing a book AND posing for a picture AND still looking like a leader and personally interested in all 5 actions/people.

    But to say he isn’t a professional politician is to do him a disservice –he is. A consumate one; he just doesn’t look it. And a policy wonk. I like that he’s a whole lot smarter than anyone in the media these days… a whole lot. And when he speaks about the Founding Fathers and their legacy today, it reminds me of the best of Reagan and the shining city on the hill.

    Newt was here in Michigan this week stumping for a solid moderate to progressive GOP Congressman under contest by a far right opponent. He hasn’t lost his touch –nor his attraction to a microphone, his own voice or the lights.

  5. Somehow I can’t see the American people voting for a Kermit-the-frog soundalike retread named “Newt.” No doubt the neocon toadies commenting here wouild love him but they are, one would hope, a diminishing minority.

  7. While I think Newt is definitely a visionary, and I often like what he has to say, I am not sure that I want him hauling his baggage (and I don’t mean his samsonite suitcase, but his “life” baggage) to the white house as the president. I think the one thing he can probably do given his absence from the congress is run as an outsider.

    When the candidates start ratcheting up the visits in NH next year, I will absolutely go listen to him speak, and don’t intend to write him off, but he doesn’t give me warm fuzzy feelings either. But then I can’t say any of the GOP “front” runners or even possibles do at the moment either. Part of it may just be that ’08 still seems awfully far away.

  8. I’ve liked Newt for years. He’s one of the most brilliant thinkers in America. Listening to him in the well of the House during the dark years was so educational and motivating for conservatives. I didn’t think Newt could make a run for Prez because of his personal “baggage” but you know what… compare his to Rudy or McCain or please…..Bill Clinton. Remember now…we are suppose to keep personal stuff seperate from public policy. Or so the leftists say. Anyway on policy Newt shoots straight, says things others are afraid to and sets the debate I think. He can have an edge to himself in a debate. He can actually filet a liberal and leave them stammering. After all they have such few ideas anyway.

  9. Realist, honest, focused, core values and a view of the world as an American first describes the field of 2008 candidates for the GOP to me.

    Condi and Newt are far ahead of anyone on my list and as a new member of the GOP I look forward to working hard for either’s endeavor.

    They’d definately elevate the debate against a field of Demcorats that are well, in my opinion, are idealists, dishonest, focused only on themselves, values that change with polls and a view of the world from an international view first.

    Of course there are exceptions on both sides, but my first statement is what I am looking for and that is something I know the Democrats do not have. When a Dem pops up with these attributes, they abort them.

  11. Somehow I can’t see the American people voting for a Kermit-the-frog soundalike retread named “Newt.” No doubt the neocon toadies commenting here wouild love him but they are, one would hope, a diminishing minority.

    Saith he whose party has not won a majority of the vote since 1964.

  12. Correction, since 1977, when Jimmy Carter won 50.1 percent of the popular vote. And prior to Johnson’s landslide (61.1 percent) in 1964, you have to go all the way back to 1944 to FDR’s fourth election, to find a Democrat who received a majority of the popular vote.

  14. Re: Newt being forced out of his party. I’ve always found it fascinating that when Republican individuals blow it, are stained, the party led by the people in fly over country have little patience with them. And they are usually forced down or out. Examples, Newt, Delay, Livingston, Lott, Cunningham, there are many other examples but I can’t come up with em at this moment. But compare the other party. They actually go up in esteem the more dirt, illegalities or moral decadence that surfaces. Examples….Sharpton, Clinton (both), Frank, Kennedy Patrick and Ted, J.Jackson, W Jefferson , Biden, Byrd (Klan), Murtha (abscam). Does one party set the bar higher and try to maintain some standards?

  16. So how many here have described themselves as “compassionate conservatives”, you pathetic attention-whore?

    However, I respectfully remain,

    “Respectfully”, my ass. “Condescendingly” sounds more like it.

  17. okay i’ll try to clean this up: newt was driven out of his position as speaker by his own party in 99. If that isn’t a testament to his incompetence as a leader what is?

    Saith he whose party is led by the loser who lost to the loser who lost to George W. Bush.

  18. #21 Frank IBC — July 23, 2006 @ 2:20 am – July 23, 2006

    Someone said: okay i’ll try to clean this up: newt was driven out of his position as speaker by his own party in 99. If that isn’t a testament to his incompetence as a leader what is?

    You said: Saith he whose party is led by the loser who lost to the loser who lost to George W. Bush.

    Thus hath saith a know-nothing.

    The Republicans expected big gains from the 1998 Congressional elections. In fact, Gingrich predicted a 30-seat Republican pickup. Instead, the Republicans lost five seats, the poorest results in 34 years for any party not in control of the White House. Having led the GOP to focus on the impeachment project as a principal strategy, Gingrich took most of the blame for the defeat. Amid threats of a rebellion in his caucus, he announced on November 6 that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well. He had been elected to an 11th term in that election, but declined to take his seat.

    Newt Gingrich

    Emphasis added, of course.

    What I find amusing is that Gingrich apparently didn’t fall from grace because of his sexual pecadillos. Unlike Republican Senator Robert Packwood, whose only crime was a bit of sexual harassment. Unlike Henry Hyde–Republican representative from Illinois and one of the main cheerleaders of the Clinton impeachment–whose “youthful indiscrection at the age of 39 broke up a household. Unlike Helen Chenoweth, Republican representative from Idaho, whose affair with a married man tore up that household–Chenowith subsequently married him. And unlike Robert Livingston, Republican representative from Louisiana and Gingrich’s heir apparent as speaker, who refused the speakership in the wake of rumored sexual pecadillos and resigned from his seat in the House.

  19. raj- some of it had to do with internal GOP politics though. I read a book called “the gang of five ” (the gang: bill kristol, ralph reed, grover norquist. clint bolich, some other guy) in it the author talks about this moment and it seems clear the Delay and co. were jockeying for power. I think the much the same could be said for when trent lott was forced out. if you look at the GOP who backed that move: cokunists like david horowitz and mona charen, it wasn’t peole who were going to be particularly offended by silly PC faux pas, but people who wanted the old southern guy out and the neo cons in.

  20. #23 lester — July 23, 2006 @ 9:20 am – July 23, 2006

    if you look at the GOP who backed that move: cokunists like david horowitz and mona charen, it wasn’t peole who were going to be particularly offended by silly PC faux pas, but people who wanted the old southern guy out and the neo cons in.

    Could be, but it is doubtful that the man who came to power in the House, Dennis Hastert, was anything but a cypher (that is, a nothing). He was apparently selected because he was a nothing, no baggage (of a sexual nature), etc. Of course, he has become fairly wealthy from his position, as should be clear from recent reports concerning his earmarks favoring his IL real estate investments. Typical “below-the-radar” Republican.