Newt Gingrich for President in 08

[HankB]

Well if Newt ran - and won - he'd be making SCOTUS appointments.

He might even nominate a woman.

Wouldn't it be fun to watch Ann Coulter's confirmation hearings?

 

[redneck2]

Well it wasn't a problem for Clinton, and apparently murder isn't a problem for Ted Kennedy.

Most Republicans think of themselves as having morals (true or not). Dem's....not so much. More into smooth talk, freebie handouts, and empty promises.

 

[Wiley]

I'm from the Ga. 6th district. The last time Newt ran for office he was elected and the very next day the SOB bailed.

I couldn't trust him to serve if he was elected. Couldn't trust him to do what he was elected to do if he served. He's a useless POS

 

[dragongoddess]

Be careful what you wish for. The republicans are authoritarians. At least the Demos are open and honest about wanting your guns. One day you will wake up to a knock on the door and the ATF is there because your republican candidate doesn't want armed citizens so they have come for your guns.
Governments fear their people and are down right scared of armed citizens and will come for your guns. Its going to happen folks. Sad to say it but the ones who do this will be our gun loving republicans. The ones we trusted to protect us.

 

[longeyes]

Hey, it's not the empty shell, it's the mouth whispering in the ear. If Bush had Newt instead of Rove, things might be a little different. But I jest...

Newt is all high Enlightenment on the outside and all Darkness within. I hear there's an ex-wife he left in the lurch at a most inopportune time...

 

[grampster]

Potus should be Everyman. That gives leave for quite a lot of allowances. Newt is an historian and understands the concepts of what America is all about, and where it should go. He is one of the best public speakers and debators in America today. He has charisma. Love him or hate him, he has charisma.
He is a true Conservative. He is also a politician. He is a leader. We need all of the virtues that he has. America forgave or chose to give Clinton a pass in the interest of a.) the feel goody lefty smarm and b.) the fact he was an underdog because of his peccadillo's.

Newt is electable because he is a known thing and he has not betrayed his conservative center. America is conservative at it's core. The rest of it is baggage that all the big ego's carry around and can be turned to political advantage.

 

[beerslurpy]

I personally think we could do a lot worse than Newt. In 08, we probably will.

I like newt on ideas, on charisma, on fiscal policy and on guns. His heart is in the right place and I think he would be ten times better than either McCain or Hillary.

Ann Coulter is a funny troll, but she should not be in a position of power. Certainly not a SCOTUS seat. There are far more worthy candidates that have been groomed for far longer. Janice Rogers Brown is the home run I am really waiting for.

 

[Robert J McElwain]

Gingrich is a poor candidate because he won't be able to overcome the "lying S.O.B." title. Remember his "Contract with America"? Do you also remember him admitting, a few years later, that it was all a lie and none of them had any intention, ever, of trying to fulfill it?

Do you think he'd lie again?

Bob

 

[Thin Black Line]

If Newt gets the nomination, then Hillary will be our next president.

+1. Between Newt's family values stumbling block and his comment that
American's who disagree with him on the war in Iraq are "insurgents", he
would inevitably say something more than stupid on a presidential campaign
trail. We would not just shoot himself in the foot, he'd blow off his entire leg
and Hillary, no mental marathon runner herself, would have no problem
walking right past him.

Be careful what you wish for. The republicans are authoritarians. At least the Demos are open and honest about wanting your guns.

Yes, you can vote for evil or lesser evil. That's the way the two-headed
hydra has been set up. The parties effectively divide up their pro-con
platforms so you're going to give up something either way. Your rights get
whittled down a little more with each administration. Think of our fedgov
as bad music that keeps getting the balance knob turned from the right to
the left, but at the same time it just keeps getting louder and louder so that
anything we have to say against or about it is just drowned out.

 

[tulsamal]

I wrote:

I don't like/trust McCain myself. BUT... he can always trot out his voting record. He has voted like one of the most conservative Senators, period. He talks to the media like a more "middle of the road maverick" but he actually votes in a very conservative way. I'm more concerned about his legendary temper than I am about any "secret liberal leanings."

And the response was:

McCain-Feingold? McCain-Kennedy?

You are pulling out his highly public "maverick" ideas. I'm talking about his documented voting record as a Senator. Check out his voting record scores below.

And he has realized that one of the areas that Bush and many in the GOP are vulnerable with the "GOP faithful" is the way they have ignored their fiscal rhetoric. All that talk about small government and cutting the debt.

McCain has been criticizing Republicans mostly from the right, shrewdly bolstering both his anti-establishment and conservative credentials--largely through appeals to what he calls "one of the bases of the Republican Party, a very important one, that believes in fiscal restraint and fiscal discipline." McCain has signed a "No Pork Pledge," fought against wasteful bridges in Alaska and urged deep cuts to nondefense and non-homeland-security-related spending--cuts that Democratic Senate minority leader Harry Reid dubs "immoral." At a recent appearance before the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, McCain described himself as a "Barry Goldwater Republican" who "revere Ronald Reagan and his stand of limited government." The routine has won him praise from the likes of National Review editor Rich Lowry, who recently wrote: "For the first time in years, conservatives have listened to McCain talk about a high-profile domestic issue and have nodded their heads vigorously."

In fact, McCain has always been far more conservative than either his supporters or detractors acknowledge. In 2004 he earned a perfect 100 percent rating from Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and a 0 percent from NARAL. Citizens Against Government Waste dubs him a "taxpayer hero." He has opposed extension of the assault-weapons ban, federal hate crimes legislation and the International Criminal Court. He has supported school vouchers, a missile defense shield and private accounts for Social Security. Well before 9/11 McCain advocated a new Reagan Doctrine of "rogue-state rollback."

"He's a foreign policy hawk, a social conservative and a fiscal conservative who believes in tax cuts but not at the expense of the deficit," says Marshall Wittmann, a former McCain staffer and conservative activist who now works at the Democratic Leadership Council. McCain's ideology resembles an exotic cocktail of Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan--a conservative before conservatism was bankrupted by fundamentalism and corporatism. His centrist reputation simply proves how far right the center has shifted in Republican politics. "The median stance for Senate Republicans in the early 1970s was significantly to the left of current GOP maverick John McCain," write political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson in their book Off-Center. "By the early 2000s, however, the median Senate Republican was essentially twice as conservative--just shy of the ultraconservative position of Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/berman

As much as I worry about his temperment, if I'm forced to choose between Hillary and McCain, I'll be voting for McCain! I expect to voting for somebody else in the GOP Primary though.

Gregg

 

[longeyes]

McCain-Feingold? McCain-Kennedy?

You are pulling out his highly public "maverick" ideas. I'm talking about his documented voting record as a Senator. Check out his voting record scores below.

No, I'm not, rather I'm citing two well-advertised and critically important instances when McCain showed he could "cooperate" with people who have America's worst interests at heart. I suppose these days that's called reaching out and unifying America? He will be remembered, by me and some others, for those two "towering" bills with his name attached, two monuments to his fatuity.

 

[Henry Bowman]

Remember his "Contract with America"? Do you also remember him admitting, a few years later, that it was all a lie and none of them had any intention, ever, of trying to fulfill it?

Actually, I remember each and every term being fulfilled. All items received an up or down vote within the first days of the new Congress and all but one passed. Where do you hear this nonsense?

 

[wmenorr67]

At this point in time it is too soon to tell who is going to be the lesser of several evils. You never know who may come out of the woodwork to run. Right now I don't believe I could vote for McCain unless he was running against Billary. McCain cannot be trusted.

 

[Robert J McElwain]

Actually, I remember each and every term being fulfilled. All items received an up or down vote within the first days of the new Congress and all but one passed. Where do you hear this nonsense?

Yep. And then it all died in the Republican controlled Senate. And Newt did very little to change that. And, as I said, a few years after he left office, he pretty much admitted that the "Contract" was meant only as a campaign gimmick.

Bob

 

[Thin Black Line]

Yep. And then it all died in the Republican controlled Senate. And Newt did very little to change that. And, as I said, a few years after he left office, he pretty much admitted that the "Contract" was meant only as a campaign gimmick.

+1. Very little changed. He's been somewhat critical about how postwar
Iraq has been managed, but given the statements below he would seem to
have little problem with continuing the neocon policy of globalist regime
change:

National Security in the 21st Century: Findings of the Hart-Rudman Commission
Speaker: Warren B. Rudman, U.S. Senate
Moderator: Charles G. Boyd, director, Washington Program, Council on Foreign Relations
Speakers: Lee H. Hamilton
Gary Hart, U.S. Senate
Newt Gingrich, U.S. Congress

September 14, 2001
Council on Foreign Relations
....
NG: Chuck, can I just comment for a second? Lee said something that I think I want to explicitly either disagree with or say in a different way and see if in fact we do disagree. It’s very important to distinguish between terrorism based on individual or very, very small group acts, and terrorism which can only function with state sponsorship. The operation against us on Tuesday could not have existed in a world in which terrorists were not harbored, protected and financed by states. Yes, you can get a car bomb somewhere. But if Iran doesn’t pay for Hesbolah, Hesbolah doesn’t have very much money. If there aren’t places that sustain Bin Laden’s forces, if he doesn’t have three training camps in Sudan, if he doesn’t have refuge in Afghanistan, it’s very hard to be successful. Can you do Oklahoma City? Yes. We saw it happen from an American, not a foreigner. Can people who hate you have some impact? Yes. But organized, systematic terrorism, and terrorism we describe, weapons of mass destruction, require states still to this day, with only a few exceptions. And if you looked at the one effort in Japan to use seren(?) gas, done by people without state support, without training, without practice, it is a much more sufferable problem. And what we have today is a definable problem. And I would say what Lee said from a different angle. (A), if all we do is bomb some people, we are very foolish. We need to defeat these organizations, and we need to force the states that sponsor them to quit sponsoring them or replace their regimes. (B), for the Middle East at large, for Muslims at large, we should aggressively be reaching out economically and in other ways to create a better future. If you were a Palestinian whose child was faced with a future Palestinians currently face, you would be in despair.

The United States historically has been a country which offered hope as well as threat. In the end we rebuilt Japan and Germany and Italy, we didn’t just bomb them and walk off. And we have to find a way to reach out to the non-fanatics and say to them, “We want to work to create a better life with you.” This has got to be a serious strategy at a regional level, and not just a series of random military pinpricks. But I don’t think we should kid ourselves. The United States of America and its allies, if they want to, can break the back of state sponsored terrorism. and probably do it within two to three years.
....

Oh, yeah, definitely presidential material.

NG: No, but I think this is an extraordinary test of America in the world. I mean, again I’m going to say my view, but this is not the Commission’s view. We are at war. It’s not a question of do we want to declare a war, we are at war. We have been at war for a long time. The Cole being attacked was an act of war. Our young men and women being killed at the airfield at Kohbar(?) Barracks was an act of war. We have opponents who are open about this, they don’t hide. What are Bin Laden’s goals? It’s not just Israel. It’s to drive America out of the Middle East. He says it openly. As long as we are buying oil, as long as we are there, we are an infringement on his fanatical beliefs.

So let’s start with that. If we are at war, we have the capacity. We may not think it’s desirable, we may not think it’s worth the cost, but let’s be clear what we’re talking about. We have the capacity to replace the government of Afghanistan probably without putting any American troops in the country by simply paying enough Afghans who don’t…The Taliban would not win a popularity contest. It is a ruthless, vicious dictatorship imposed in a country, and it’s in the middle of a civil war. And if we said tomorrow morning, “We’re prepared to pay up to 100,000 Afghans, and train them, if we had the support of Pakistan and Tajikistan,” the odds are pretty good that the Taliban would lose, and lose fairly decisively.

Where do I send the campaign donations.....

If we were to say on the Sudan, which is a much more accessible country than Afghanistan, the current regime is a vicious, slave owning regime which has killed southerners, Africans, has killed well over a million Africans, is a despicable regime, and it has two choices. It can kick out all the terrorists or it can cease to exist as a regime. I think the idea of anything short of that being our goal, after losing thousands of Americans in our own cities, is lunacy. And I agree with whoever said earlier, to go in and bomb them and not replace the regime is insanity. What it’s going to do is create another generation of martyrs who are then prepared…you’ll presently have the Bin Laden brigade working to get germ warfare.

So I think our goal has to be to say to the world, “We will not tolerate state sponsored and state supported and state harbored terrorism.” Secretary Powell has said it, the President has said it, Under Secretary Wolfowitz has said it. If we mean it, if our words have meaning, then we have to be engaged in a coercive strategy, not a consensual strategy, for those regimes which are dictatorships repressing and killing their own people, and prepared to sustain terrorism as an explicit state policy.

This sounds like the current administration.....yes, sir, may I have another....

 

[FreedomKommando]

Newt doesnt stand a chance to get the nomination. He is way to conservative.

"To be a conservative in this country means to hold a deep and implacable attachment to the regime insofar as it is run by the Republican Party. Note that I’m not saying that this is a corruption of the term “conservative” or a misunderstanding. This is what the word means in reality, and there is nothing that can be done about it." Lew Rockwell, Republicans and Communists.

BUT . . . if you think media is hard on Bush,

No, not at all. They are pretty easy on him.

They just talked about Sen. Bill Frist, senate majority leader, also being at the Iowa State Fair when they rehashed it with another "analyst". With Newt's past, and McCain being a RINO, I think Sen. Frist may be our best hope

While in medical school, Frist obtained cats from animal shelters, under pretense of adoption as pets, for school research experiments in which he killed the animals. In a 1989 autobiography, Frist described how he "spent days and nights on end in the lab, taking the hearts out of cats, dissecting each heart." After some time, Frist said " lost my supply of cats," so he chose to deceive animal shelters, an act which he described as "heinous and dishonest."

"Heinous and dishonest." Sounds like he is eminently qualified to be president.

Frist has no charisma. Not gonna happen.

Whenever I examine a politican said to have "charisma," my first instinct is to grab for my wallet.

We may be in deep doo doo then.

We pretty much are. It'll probably boil down to President McCain or President H. Clinton.

Newt gets my vote. If not Newt, I'll vote for Giuliani.

Boot-licking statists, both of them.

I think we oughta draft Ron Paul for prez.

President Ron Paul......I'd love to see it. Are you going to his birthday this weekend in Surfside? I will be there.

Wouldn't it be fun to watch Ann Coulter's confirmation hearings?

Would love to see her have to answer questions under oath. Would make for some lively theatre.

Most Republicans think of themselves as having morals (true or not). Dem's....not so much. More into smooth talk, freebie handouts, and empty promises.

Every Democrat I have ever met thinks of himself as more moral than the typical Republican. As for "smooth talk, freebie handouts, and empty promises," that pretty much describes both parties.

When Newt was in Congress, for example, he made sure that his congressional district received more federal dollars per capita than just about any other.

Newt fooled around on his first wife, Jackie Battley.
In 1977 Newt Gingrich received an extramarital blowjob from Anne Manning, who was herself married. She explained later: "We had oral sex... He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, 'I never slept with her.'"
Feb 1981 - Newt Gingrich finally divorces Jackie. He had her served with divorce papers while she was in the hospital receiving treatment for cancer.
Aug 1981 - Newt Gingrich marries Marianne Ginther.
Jul 1983 - Newt Gingrich demands that the House expels fellow Congressmen Daniel Crane and Gerry Studds for having affairs with Congressional pages.
17 Jan 1997 - The House ethics committee fines Newt $300,000 for financial misdeeds.

We need all of the virtues that [Newt] has.

Oh really? Hypocrisy, adultery, cheating, ever worshipful of state power? If those are his virtues, then I we don't even want to hear about his vices.

 

[Phetro]

McCain has been criticizing Republicans mostly from the right, shrewdly bolstering both his anti-establishment and conservative credentials--largely through appeals to what he calls "one of the bases of the Republican Party, a very important one, that believes in fiscal restraint and fiscal discipline." McCain has signed a "No Pork Pledge," fought against wasteful bridges in Alaska and urged deep cuts to nondefense and non-homeland-security-related spending--cuts that Democratic Senate minority leader Harry Reid dubs "immoral." At a recent appearance before the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, McCain described himself as a "Barry Goldwater Republican" who "revere Ronald Reagan and his stand of limited government." The routine has won him praise from the likes of National Review editor Rich Lowry, who recently wrote: "For the first time in years, conservatives have listened to McCain talk about a high-profile domestic issue and have nodded their heads vigorously."

In fact, McCain has always been far more conservative than either his supporters or detractors acknowledge. In 2004 he earned a perfect 100 percent rating from Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and a 0 percent from NARAL. Citizens Against Government Waste dubs him a "taxpayer hero." He has opposed extension of the assault-weapons ban, federal hate crimes legislation and the International Criminal Court. He has supported school vouchers, a missile defense shield and private accounts for Social Security. Well before 9/11 McCain advocated a new Reagan Doctrine of "rogue-state rollback."

"He's a foreign policy hawk, a social conservative and a fiscal conservative who believes in tax cuts but not at the expense of the deficit," says Marshall Wittmann, a former McCain staffer and conservative activist who now works at the Democratic Leadership Council. McCain's ideology resembles an exotic cocktail of Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan--a conservative before conservatism was bankrupted by fundamentalism and corporatism. His centrist reputation simply proves how far right the center has shifted in Republican politics. "The median stance for Senate Republicans in the early 1970s was significantly to the left of current GOP maverick John McCain," write political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson in their book Off-Center. "By the early 2000s, however, the median Senate Republican was essentially twice as conservative--just shy of the ultraconservative position of Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania."

This is a propaganda piece designed to convince conservatives to vote for him, so leftists get what they want no matter which candidate wins. Some idiot who works for the LEFTISTS is going to be trusted to tell us what McCain stands for? Please.

If you want to lose a ton of rights, elect Hitlery. If you want to lose 1,800 pounds of rights, elect McCain.

 

[Phetro]

"To be a conservative in this country means to hold a deep and implacable attachment to the regime insofar as it is run by the Republican Party. Note that I’m not saying that this is a corruption of the term “conservative” or a misunderstanding. This is what the word means in reality, and there is nothing that can be done about it." Lew Rockwell, Republicans and Communists.

Who cares what Lew Rockwell's wrong opinion of what the word means is?

While in medical school, Frist obtained cats from animal shelters, under pretense of adoption as pets, for school research experiments in which he killed the animals. In a 1989 autobiography, Frist described how he "spent days and nights on end in the lab, taking the hearts out of cats, dissecting each heart." After some time, Frist said " lost my supply of cats," so he chose to deceive animal shelters, an act which he described as "heinous and dishonest."

He should be rotting in jail for that. In fact, the penalty should be a lot more severe.

 

[ArmedBear]

I'd rather see Ron Paul as President.

However, if the other choices are Clinton, McCain, and/or Guiliani, I'd vote for Gingrich or Frist in a heartbeat.

Given a choice between someone who dissected some cats (instead of other cats, which also came from animal shelters, BTW) and someone who helped make Vince Foster a verb (posthumously, of course)? Someone who took gobs of money from Soros and changes his deep convictions for every different talk show? Someone who is a committed anti-gun politician who was saved only by 9/11?

It's important not to forget who these people REALLY are. All of them.

 

[RealGun]

However, if the other choices are Clinton, McCain, and/or Guiliani, I'd vote for Gingrich or Frist in a heartbeat.

All but Clinton are Republicans, so with that mix, I would say voting in the primaries will be critical for everyone who really cares. I have taken a real interest in Tancredo. McCain, Giuliani, Gingrich, and Frist all give me the creeps. Tancredo is not preoccupied with "values" and is serious about illegal immigration.

 

[ArmedBear]

All but Clinton are Republicans

Some would disagree, but technically, that's true. I couldn't think of a Democrat other than Hillary with any prospects for being a candidate. Then again, last time we got John Kerry, whom no one west of the Mississippi had heard of since the Nuclearn Freeze Movement idiocy, until 2004.

I would say voting in the primaries will be critical for everyone who really cares

Yes, sirreee, bob.
Agreed on all points.

(And I think that Libertarians may want to consider working to get better candidates in as R's and/or D's, rather than fielding whoever we might have this time and getting 1% for our efforts)

 

[RioShooter]

Quote:
Actually, I remember each and every term being fulfilled. All items received an up or down vote within the first days of the new Congress and all but one passed. Where do you hear this nonsense?

Yep. And then it all died in the Republican controlled Senate. And Newt did very little to change that. And, as I said, a few years after he left office, he pretty much admitted that the "Contract" was meant only as a campaign gimmick.

Exactly how does the Speaker of the House influence what happens in the Senate? Newt did his part; the Senate failed to support him.

 

[MudPuppy]

No doubt, Republicans will strip us of our right to bear arms slower than the Democrats...

 

[Lupinus]

at the very least he should make a go of it. Running the primarys cant hurt

 

[Colt]

If my choice is McCain or Guiliani, I'll sit this one out, no matter who they run against. I want a conservative, not a RINO. If I can't get it in 08, I'll wait for 12 or 16.

Even if the GOP looses Congress in 06 or 08, they'll most likely still have the senate. Which means the POTUS is going to be somewhat limited, SCOTUS nominations aside. A deadlocked government is preferred by many to a GOP or DEM controlled government anway.

I refuse to elect a RINO. If that means losing the POTUS for 4 or 8 years, so be it. If we don't send a clear message to the GOP, the party will continue to deteriorate until it is completely indistinguishable from the DEMs. That, IMO, is more dangerous than putting even Hillary into office.

I won't vote for Hillary, but I won't vote against her. I also won't vote third party, because despite what some members here believe, it is a wasted vote. I won't reward a lost cause just because my first choice has lost its way.