| As befits a front-runner, Gingrich mostly slammed Obama in his speech.
2012 is most important because:
Eight years of Barack Obama will come close to breaking us as a country. It really matters that we win.
And Gingrich said he would make economic growth his top priority:
Barack Obama is the best food-stamp president in American history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history.
He reiterated his Lincoln-Douglas debate challenge to Obama, adding some silly red meat for the wingnut audience:
Let's be fair. If he wants a teleprompter, he gets a teleprompter. If you had to defend Obamacare, wouldn't you want a teleprompter?
According to a tweet by a local NBC reporter, he also, weirdly, made nice with Bill Clinton:
"We couldnt have gotten done what we did w/o Clinton" Gingrich says of his gestures to create bipartisanship. Includes "rides on AF One"
Gingrich picked up a local endorsement from former Congressman, and fellow Congressional adulterer, Vito Fossella:
He talks to people as adults, with solutions. He'd be good for our country. I'll help in anyway I can.
A more powerful and respected local Republican, former Congressman and Borough President Guy Molinari, will not be helping Gingrich at all.
Molinari, who has endorsed Romney, told the Advance that Gingrich is "evil":
The thought that this man could be president of the United States is appalling. He's got all kinds of baggage.
snip
This guy is evil. He's an evil person.
All politics is personal -- Gingrich passed over Molinari to the top spot on a subcommittee, after telling him in writing that he would get the post.
And Molinari's daughter Susan, who succeeded him as Staten Island's Member of Congress, was involved with her husband, former Congressman Bill Paxon, in an abortive 1997 coup against Gingrich.
The most fascinating part of Gingrich as the tea party's not-Romney No. 5 is that a lot of tea partiers hate the guy -- Washington insider and lobbyist, NAFTA champion, climate change apostate, immigration moderate, social issues hypocrite, etc.
Mark Meckler, co-chair of Tea Party Patriots and former Herbalife huckster, told National Review:
He's not a great not-Romney candidate, because he has flipflopped on a lot of the major issues.
He's made some major gaffes for someone who's supposed to be a conservative leader.
The Reuters (!) story about the Staten Island event features lots of tea party love for Gingrich, though it's from people who wanted to see Gingrich because they like him.
"The Gingrich side has more passion than Romney supporters," said Daniel Castorina, 41, a member of the Staten Island Tea Party. "The Cain supporters... will all fall behind Gingrich."
Ben Schulmann, 53, a Tea Party member from New Jersey, described Gingirch as "a Constitutionalist who will bring our nation back to its founding principles."
"I don't like Mitt Romney. I don't think he has the charisma to get elected and I don't think he will fight hard enough," said Lou Taroli, 59, who described himself as a life-long Democrat and one-time supporter of Obama. He said he had made the two-hour trip from his home in Pennsylvania to attend the event.
"It all comes back to, I don't want four more years of Obama," he said.
"I think he's by far the most intelligent guy up there," said Steve Suity, 35, who said he has bought at least a dozen of Gingrich' many books.
The last quote brings to mind Paul Krugman's recent quip, on ABC's This Week, about Gingrich's appeal to the uneducated GOP base:
He's a stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like.
Gingrich is the flavor-of-the-month for the Republican far-right/tea partiers, and, as a Democrat, I certainly hope he's the eventual nominee.
Because a guy with his baggage within baggage will undoubtedly lose to Obama, only in part due to lukewarm support from the tea party/activist GOP base. |
