2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

This fuckin' guy:

Newt Gingrich insists his fans will not be silenced.

Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, on Tuesday morning threatened not participate in any future debates with audiences that have been instructed to be silent. That was the case on Monday, when Brian Williams of NBC News asked the audience of about 500 people who assembled for a debate in Tampa to hold their applause until the commercial breaks.

In an interview with the morning show “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Gingrich said NBC’s rules amounted to stifling free speech. In what has become a standard line of attack for his anti-establishment campaign, Mr. Gingrich blamed the media for trying to silence a dissenting point of view.

“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/gingrich-says-he-will-skip-debates-if-audiences-cant-participate

I mean, aside from the "stifling free speech" baloney, that's some ju-jitsu there. These debates aren't about clarifying the differences among the candidates, they're about "the candidates" vs. "the media." The man is an expert at nursing the traditional grievances.

what's a game show w/out whooping?

sullivan sounds like ralph fiennes in red dragon. "you are witness to a great becoming" etc.

Definition of GRANDIOSE
1
: characterized by affectation of grandeur or splendor or by absurd exaggeration

sometimes I think the first person with a time machine shouldn't go back and assassinate various awful people, but instead make sure they get picked first a few times for the kickball team while growing up

this is absolutely the right thread for that post

it is! (it was in response to the Newt post; I'd forgotten there was a bullying thread running concurrently lol)

I am pretty sure we're about two debates away from people using air horns in the audience

imagine a debate where everyone in the audience has a vuvuzela

Yes Men?

http://selfdeport.org/

!!!

We believe our current laws must be changed to abolish anchor babies, whose children, throughout history, should have never received automatic citizenship to this nation.

this is amazing

A link landed in my spam folder, so I figured it must be a YM parody.

gingrich's scandals are essentially a selling point cause they just prove that 'everyone is against him'

Look how well that worked out for Herman Cain.

so am i correct in understanding that newt fucking gingrich is running as an "outsider"?

Look how well that worked out for Herman Cain.

A destructive strategy that sinks a black man but buoys a white man? Who could have seen that one coming?

DW Griffith

eh cain had the same angry bird trajectory as every other crazy candidate. I think his numbers woulda been similar without his scandals.

FORTYFUCKINGFIVEMILLION DOLLARS A YEAR

just had to get that out

lol "is Mitt Romney an anchor baby?"

"13 percent" is the figure that most delights me.

Ugh--that Sullivan excerpt above is awful. The one thing I remember about Bush's SOTU four years ago was how inconsequential it seemed in the middle of Obama/Hillary: "Hey, everyone, remember me?" I realize that what's going on on the Republican side this year is not...qualitatively equal to Obama/Hillary, but it has commanded the headlines almost as much--and Obama, similarly is automatically edged out of the picture, and is therefore (I believe) similarly diminished. (Especially as he'll invariably be proposing stuff that will go nowhere.)

Yes, but Bush = the lamest of ducks at that point.

True--obvious difference there.

Jennifer Rubin exhibits the 'stopped clock' principle. It's actually as cogent a summary of why Newt is a ridiculous choice as any other from the right.

Gingrich's "anti-media" angle is pretty shrewdly constructed to insulate him from any and all scandals/attacks - but it's a misdirection tactic that will only work for the rabid GOP base

the question is what % of primary voters are 'rabid GOP base'

He's so full of it, though. He goes after the reporter who asks him about his recidivist adultery saying that the 'liberal media' are degrading society (thereby shitting on the a free press with all the gusto that he shits on an independent judiciary) when such tough questions have been happening since the election of 1800 ffs. Then he turns around and insists that a debate which should elucidate should turn into a free-for-all whooping session so he can win not through reason but through emotion. If that's not degrading the tenor of our political discourse, I'm not sure what is. It's crypto-fascist demogoguery and he never fails to stun me with his utter contempt for Americans and for his mind-bogglingly wrong reading of American and republican values.

John Dickerson: "Romney has clearly cracked the seal on the Destroy Newt briefing book. Gingrich is running as a Washington outsider. Romney called B.S. (Or as he says it: Golly No!)"

the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate

Luckily being 'against the media' doesn't preclude constantly appearing in televised debates & talk shows.

Kinda love the fact that Warren Buffet's secretary is attending the SOTU and sitting next to Michele Obama. Obv. the fact that she pays a higher tax rate than her boss is going to figure prominently in the speech.

that was my first thought too

GINGRICH: "When I was speaker, we had four consecutive balanced budgets."

THE FACTS: Actually, two.

The four straight years of budget surpluses were 1998 through 2001. Gingrich left Congress in 1999, so he only had a hand in surpluses for his last two years. The budget ran deficits for his first two years as speaker.

The highest surplus of that four-year string came in budget year 2000, after Gingrich was out of office.

Overall, the national debt went up during the four years Gingrich was speaker. In January 1995, when he assumed the leadership position, the gross national debt was $4.8 trillion. When he left four years later, it was $5.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion.

a little early for this but worth noting

http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/01/deadlocked-not-brokered-is-kind-of.html

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/photo-exclusive-when-george-romney-met-saul-alins

lol

Pobrecito.

So maybe we ought to all find someone who we all kind of like instead of heading to Tampa in August all licking wounds and pretending to rally to the man the voters chose between the evils of two real lessers.

maybe, just maybe, there's a reason this "someone" has not appeared yet...

I am a firm believer that primaries make stronger candidates. But at some point you just have to stand back, take a sip of bourbon, and sigh “Damn” under your breath as you behold the carnage being wrought within the Republican Party.

he gets it!

Newt Will Win
ggross56 (Diary) Tuesday, January 24th at 5:38PM EST (link)

This isn’t that complicated. Newt will defeat President Obama this November because Newt’s economic policies are smart, his reforms are what people agree with & his energy plans are precisely what people are looking for.

These are 70-30 issues in a nation that’s 2:1 conservative to liberal. What’s difficult about that?

xpost -- He won't really get it until he's posting drunk all the time.

haha goole I almost posted that thing

Feel the inspiration:

"Now, the banks aren't bad people. They're just overwhelmed right now," Romney said. "They're overwhelmed with a lot of things. One is a lot of homes coming in, that are in foreclosure or in trouble, and the other is with a massive new pile of regulations."

Nate Silver currently gives Newt a 75% chance of winning FL, fwiw. The rapid sloshing around in poll numbers continues to be breathtaking.

when is the FL vote?

Jan 31, a week from today.

what's amazing to me is that the GOP hasn't marginalized itself into irrelevance. i feel like any sane person witnessing this spectacle would conclude that this is its destiny.

but no matter how uninspiring the candidates may get, the 2-party system has this country on lock.

give it time

Now, the banks aren't bad people

lol he is so fucked.

the 2-party system has this country on lock.

Incontrovertible