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Newt Gingrich: burning bridges as he melts down

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Returning home yesterday, I didn’t have much time to chime in on the events of the day–and it was quite an eventful day, with the president’s chief of staff stepping down and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich melting down.

It might take a man with Dr. Jung’s insight to explain just why the candidate has been lashing out so vehemently against one of his competitors for the Republican nomination.  And he may, in attacking former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s record at Bain, have completely marginalized himself within his party. “In less than a day,” Jennifer Rubin observes

. . . the Newt Gingrich attack on capitalism has failed miserably to elevate Gingrich or to make Mitt Romney a less-desirable nominee. The reaction is nearly uniform.

Rush Limbaugh, the uber-Romney critic, pronounced himself “uncomfortable” with Gingrich using the rhetoric of the left. Politicoreports that Gingrich managed to rally the conservative blogosphere — around Romney. “Conservative bloggers who are often critical of Mitt Romney were rallying to his aid Monday, arguing that criticisms of his time at Bain Capital are ineffective and out-of-bounds for those who value the free market.”

His attacks seem to resemble a scorched earth strategy rather than an attempt to engage his rivals in a serious debate:

A longtime GOP campaign operative and Romney supporter told me, “Newt’s just dynamiting bridges behind him on the way out of town now. The entire party from top to bottom sees it. Everyone knew he was volatile, but using a Michael Moore hit-job on capitalism just confirmed it.”

One wonders if he’ll show any class tonight in his concession speech.  Or continue to stew in his sour grapes.

Now, here’s the real question for consideration.  Newt Gingrich first ran for Congress the year Richard Nixon resigned.  He has experienced first-hand negative campaigning.  Did he assume he would be immune in the current contest?

Given his baggage about which conservative bloggers and pundits have been talking for years now, why wasn’t he prepared for negative ads?

Comments

  2. Obama will win again for his second term and return to the White House in 2013. The Republicans are not happy with all their candidates. The GOP is hurting the conservatives and Tea Party.

  3. Presidential primaries get nasty. Remember Hillary and the 3 o’clock phone call, which was mild.

    But the sad thing is a man who was on the verge of a resurgence of policy ideas and solutions, maybe even the vice-presidency (which would have been a great place for Newt presiding over the Senate) Will now be shunned as too volatile for any political alliance;

    Gingrich was tossed in 1998 for a reason. Now we know what many Republican congresspersons warned us of in 1998.

  4. I look at Newt and I see a rumpled old bean bag of a man who can do a great job of putting an issue in perspective, but when he misfires, he insists on sticking with the mistake out of some mysterious point of honor.

    Romney got under Huckabee’s skin, McCain’s skin, and now Newt’s skin. It reminds me of John Kerry’s Newsweek quote: “I can’t believe I’m losing to this idiot.”

    If Romney is so good at getting under the skin of an opponent, perhaps he is exactly the guy to needle the Narcissist-in-Chief.

  5. Looks like George Will’s comment that Gingrich would have made an excellent socialist was pretty close to the mark; and to think we all thought it was over-the-top at the time.

    There is a colorful and offensive expression that may or may not make it past the filter that describes what Gingrich is doing: “going full retard.” It’s when a man of the right has a disagreement with conservatives and adopts full throttle the rhetoric and posturing of the left. We’ve seen it in this forum when one commenter disagreed with the conservative position on border security (which is, we should have some) and started calling supporters of border security racists and xenophobes. We’ve seen it with other commenters who’ve embraced OWS or some other lefty cause and started using rhetoric indistinguishable from Obama drones.

    Newt has gone Full Retard.

    (Now to click ‘Say It’ and find out if I have to repost with the word ‘Retard’ in D33T.)

  7. Romney was ‘way down on my list of desirable GOP candidates back in 2008 (though he was ahead of McCain), and he was pretty far down on my list for 2012 at the start of 2011. Unfortunately, most of the people I wanted to run didn’t.

    I, too, would prefer Huntsman over Romney, except Huntsman seems to be this election’s Rudy Giuliani, and his results are likely to be about the same.

  10. And yet, if we are going to have an honest assesment of the candidates, Bain can not be of the table.

    It has to be diced through like everything else.

    Economist James Pethokoukis isn’t very pleased with the info the Romney camp has provided to thwart the Newt attack. On jobs growth during his stint as Mass Governor, Peth writes:

    During his time as governor, Massachusetts had net job growth of 1.4 percent, as USA Today has noted. That was slower than the national average of 5.3 percent with only Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio notching slower gains. That’s bad.

    He notes that the Romney team has been reluctant to offer more hard data to support the positive claims of the campaign. Peth also points out that Romney is very vulnerable to the consequences of businesses that were disolved while Romney was head of Bain. For instance, there is this story:

    Soon after, in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888. It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, needed expensive updating, and demand for its products was susceptible to cycles in the mining industry and commodities markets. Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they’d been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month. What’s more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company’s underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees. … ”I worked hard all my life and played by the rules, and they allowed this to happen,” [one worker said].

    I guarantee there will be more like them. Just as Carly Fiorina never came up with a strategy to deal with er tumultuous tenure as head of HP, these, and other stories like them are perfect campaign fodder for the Obama team to use against Romney if he does become the nominee. In the current economic climate, if everything stays the way it is now, ceteris parabus, this, more than anything else, is the trump card Obama has against a Romney nomination.

  11. @Sonic,

    I also expect some of Romney’s steps to keep things secret will come up (Legal Insurrection offers a few for posterity). More importantly, the press will give President Obama a pass on his lack of transparency while letting him broadside Romney.

    That’s not counting the ‘whisper campaign’ we’ll see about Romney being a Mormon.

    Now any candidate with an (R) after his name is going to be lambasted by the same tactics (Perry = Bush Light, Gingrich will result in lots of Barack and Michelle photo ops, Santorum will be called anti-gay, etc etc.) My concern with Romney is he doesn’t seem willing to fight back. McCain 2.0.

    Anyone is better than President Obama. Romney rubs me wrong, but this Bain capital thing is insane.

  13. I’m glad the Bain business is being vetted now–IF Romney is the nominee; however, the nomination is a long & winding road with much of the uncertainty.

    Gingrich is out for revenge, but this is part of primary process. Can Romney stand the heat?

  14. I can’t stand the way Republicans have to nominate”the next GUY” in line.
    Bob Dole
    John McCain
    Mitt Romney

    Gingrich is a brilliant conservative. 90% CU score.
    Mitt Romney, really? That’s the best we can do against a Prez polling worse than James Earl Carter?
    20 delegates chosen so far, another 12 tonight, and Republicans buy the media tripe that it’s over.
    Gosh how I wish the PEOPLE would revolt against the media and the status quo. That’s what people like about Ron Paul btw. He’s not the ordinary, bs polititian. I would never vote for R Paul for President, but some non pol who would shake things up, got Michelle Obama into the White House.
    I think we are going to throw Obama out next year, but too bad we will be replacing him with a Jerry Ford, H W Bush Republican.
    Sad, missed opportunity.

  15. By the way
    I wish all this attention about money spent, mean spirited attacks and digging up dirt had been discussed way back in Iowa when
    $5MM was spent against Newt.
    Oh no, that was just politics and a good campaign staff…..
    Too many Republicans are being led around by the nose by the
    establishment old guard Republicans, loyal to
    McCain, H W Bush, and the Congressional Rep Leaders.
    Time for the tea party to
    TEA PARTY UP.

  17. By the way
    I wish all this attention about money spent, mean spirited attacks and digging up dirt had been discussed way back in Iowa when
    $5MM was spent against Newt.

    I thought it was covered pretty well.

    The problem Newt had was that at least one of the lines of attack against him was centered on his previously undisclosed association with Freddie Mac, not a great thing for a Conservative to be associated with, and then the way he handled that revelation. It was clumsy. Newt has spent many years since leaving the Speakership finding ways to live off the Government teat. That is an impossible thing to run from or explain away.

    If Mit follows his current form, as the front-runner, he will barely acknowledge the attacks, let them roll off him like water off the back of a duck, and sail right through NH on to SC. If the unemployment numbers go below 8% this year, in the general election, he will really be hurt by the inevitable Mit / BainKilled My Town” ads.