# Documenting the downfall of Newt **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 7, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077 "2012-02-07T15:46:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/41 "2012-03-12T18:42:11Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > March 11: Fox News reports that there is talk inside the Gingrich campaign of forming a [“dream ticket”](http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/03/11/exclusive-gingrich-perry-pre-convention-ticket-works) with Texas Govenor Rick Perry: Let’s assume that happens. That means Perry would be debating Biden. That might be fun. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/42 "2012-03-12T18:42:52Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Let’s assume that happens. That means Perry would be debating Biden. That might be fun. A debate Biden can actually **win!** ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/43 "2012-03-12T18:52:47Z")
Incidentally, Ronald Reagan tried a similar trick in 1976. Trailing President Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination by a handful of delegates and with Ford lacking a clear delegate majority, Reagan unexpectedly announced his choice of VP a week ahead of the convention: Pennsylvania senator [Richard Schweicker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Schweiker). The move was aimed at trying to win over uncommitted delegates from the Northeast and broaden Reagan’s appeal (Schweicker was a moderate), but it infuriated his core Southern base and ended up costing him more than he gained. Here I think Newt is hoping that this coy non-announcement will appeal more to the base and win him delegates in the upcoming Southern primaries (particularly Texas at the end of May, should Gingrich still be around by then). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/44 "2012-03-12T19:48:01Z")
Whatever. I’ve long since lost track of Newt’s delusion _du jour_. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/45 "2012-03-12T20:44:55Z")
> [@](#): > > If he were to follow pattern, and if he were to actually get elected in 2016, he’d leave Callista 3/4 of the way through his term. How’s that for scandal? Would she get half the White House? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/46 "2012-03-14T14:25:12Z")
[Ben Adler writes in _The Nation:_](http://www.thenation.com/blog/166786/goodbye-gingrich) > [@](#): > > Newt Gingrich may not drop out of the race just yet, but his campaign for president is effectively finished. On Tuesday, Rick Santorum won both Mississippi’s and Alabama’s primaries. Gingrich came in second, but that’s not good enough. Last week Gingrich’s spokesman R.C. Hammond said they had to win both Mississippi and Alabama, and everywhere else in the Deep South to remain a credible candidate. “From Spartanburg [SC] all the way to Texas, those all need to go for Gingrich,” Hammond said. > > On Super Tuesday Gingrich won only one state—Georgia, which he represented in Congress—out of ten. Santorum picked up several states and gave Romney a scare in the key battleground of Ohio. It is clear that Rick Santorum has firmly supplanted Gingrich as the leading conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney. This is . . . deeply disturbing. I find Gingrich as loathsome as does anyone here, but how can anybody, even a Pub, prefer a crazy moron like **Santorum** to him?! :eek:☹ ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/47 "2012-03-14T16:03:44Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > March 11: Fox News reports that there is talk inside the Gingrich campaign of forming a [“dream ticket”](http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/03/11/exclusive-gingrich-perry-pre-convention-ticket-works) with Texas Govenor Rick Perry That’s the kind of “dream” you’d have after eating an entire jumbo pepperoni pizza with funny mushrooms. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/48 "2012-03-14T16:33:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > …This is . . . deeply disturbing. I find Gingrich as loathsome as does anyone here, but how can anybody, even a Pub, prefer a crazy moron like **Santorum** to him?! :eek:☹ I thought back in mid-December that Santorum would probably rise as the un-Romney among the GOP faithful. He’s as conservative as Gingrich, but without the baggage of Newt’s messy personal life, flirtation with reality on global climate change, mixed Capitol Hill record, or perceived goofiness on moonbases, space exploration etc. (And I say that as someone who strongly supports manned spaceflight). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/49 "2012-03-14T16:39:02Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I thought back in mid-December that Santorum would probably rise as the un-Romney among the GOP faithful. He’s as conservative as Gingrich, but without the baggage of Newt’s messy personal life, flirtation with reality on global climate change, mixed Capitol Hill record, or perceived goofiness on moonbases, space exploration etc. > > (And I say that as someone who strongly supports manned spaceflight). I respond as one who, at President Newt’s inauguration, would decide to put down the gun at the last moment (and I didn’t say which way it was pointing), in the faint hope that this Admin might be worth all the damage it’s going to do, if it really gets something done Out There. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/50 "2012-03-14T16:44:57Z")
With as many difficulties as President Obama has had with Congress, I suspect a President Gingrich would be able to get them to do virtually nothing. He’s got too many enemies still on the Hill. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/51 "2012-03-19T15:24:14Z")
March 18th: Although Gingrich wasn’t expected to do much in the Puerto Rico primary (he didn’t campaign there), [this is still pretty bad](http://news.yahoo.com/buddy-roemer-beating-gingrich-paul-puerto-rico-144233217--abc-news.html): > [@](#): > > The votes are still being counted but with 83 percent of the vote in, Buddy Roemer, the former governor of Louisiana who officially withdrew his bid for the GOP nomination in February…is about 200 votes ahead of Newt Gingrich… To be fair, Romney pretty much ran away with it at 85%, and Gingrich did beat Ron Paul and [Fred Karger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Karger). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/52 "2012-03-19T19:17:12Z")
Even if Newt were to drop out tomorrow, this Gallup poll suggests that the two frontrunners would pretty much split his supporters evenly: [http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/poll-gingrich-supporters-would-split-between/?iref=allsearch](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/poll-gingrich-supporters-would-split-between/?iref=allsearch) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/53 "2012-03-19T19:49:43Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Even if Newt were to drop out tomorrow, this Gallup poll suggests that the two frontrunners would pretty much split his supporters evenly: [http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/poll-gingrich-supporters-would-split-between/?iref=allsearch](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/16/poll-gingrich-supporters-would-split-between/?iref=allsearch) But Gringrich probably would still be pretending that Santorum’s votes were his, as he did in Mississippi and Alabama. In fact, if Obama beats Romney in the general election, he’ll probably take credit for that, too. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/54 "2012-03-20T03:20:50Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > But Gringrich probably would still be pretending that Santorum’s votes were his, as he did in Mississippi and Alabama. In fact, if Obama beats Romney in the general election, he’ll probably take credit for that, too. I would put virtually no self-serving delusion past Gingrich at this point. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/55 "2012-03-23T04:25:09Z")
March 22nd: Campaigning in Louisiana ahead of that state’s primary, [Gingrich held a Q&A with voters](http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-respond-voter-calling-obama-muslim-133229193--abc-news.html) in which one man told the former speaker that President Obama is a “Muslim and a student of Saul Alinsky”. At least one other member of the audience shouted “I believe that too,” with a few audible claps in the room. Gingrich responded by saying that he believes the president prefers power to prosperity and policies that centralize the government, and then said the following: [QUOTE=Newt Gingrich] “If the price of that is that we’re poorer and we have fewer jobs and that we have less energy, that’s fine with him. It’s a price he’ll pay…I agree with you about Alinsky. I think he’s driven by a radicalism to remake America and he doesn’t frankly care what level of pain it costs the rest of us.” [/quote] Later during an interview on Fox News, Gingrich was asked about the incident–and specifically why he didn’t address the man’s false claim that President Obama is a Muslim. Gingrich answered as follows: [QUOTE=Newt Gingrich] “You know, that is such total baloney. I was asked by a reporter immediately afterwards. I said of course I accept that he’s a Christian. The guy didn’t ask me a question. The guy got up and stated his opinion. I don’t have an obligation to go around and correct every single voter about every single topic. I also didn’t agree with him.” [/quote] THe linked article compares this incident to a [similar encounter](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YIq5Q15L1o) John McCain had during his 2008 presidential campaign. Boy, when you’re less presidential that John McCain… ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/56 "2012-03-25T23:55:39Z")
March 23rd: After President Obama [made his remarks](http://news.yahoo.com/obama-had-son-hed-look-trayvon-171805699.html) about the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida–saying (among other things) “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”–Newt Gingrich used his appearance that same evening on Sean Hannity’s radio show to [slam the President](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/gingrich-calls-obamas-trayvon-martin-remarks-disgraceful/): [QUOTE=Newt Gingrich] “What the president said in a sense is disgraceful. It’s not a question of who that young man looked like…Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background. Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot that would be ok because it didn’t look like him? "Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.” [/quote] Obama senior adviser David Plouffe commented on Gingrich’s comments during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on [ABC’s “This Week”](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/david-plouffe-newt-gingrichs-comments-reprehensible/): [QUOTE=David Plouffe] “Those comments are reprehensible. Speaker Gingrich is clearly in the last throes of his political career … You can make a decision whether to go out with some shred of dignity or say these irresponsible reckless things. And he’s clearly chosen the latter.” [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/57 "2012-03-26T07:06:38Z")
You know, that comment would be admirable coming from someone from a post-racial perspective. Someone that had consistently tried to negate the idea that the ideal was a WASP (or in Newt’s case, WASRC) and everyone else was a second class citizen. I couldn’t find any evidence to conclude that Newt adopted that stance so I’ll have to conclude he was merely passed that statement from a staffer. In fact, coupled with his immigration stance (better to reinstitute child labour than be outcompeted by immigrants), it seems hypocritical. As far as I know the immigration statute as it stands limits successful applicants by country to 20k each, irrespective of their particular size. Having immigration limits but no other population limits (and attempting to sabotage the one method of population control in America) strikes me as a belief in the validity of “race” as a social construct. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/58 "2012-03-27T14:07:30Z")
March 26th: The Gingrich campaign is now [charging individuals](http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-begins-charging-50-photos-events-211722126.html) who wish to be photographed with the former Speaker at campaign events: > [@](#): > > In a sign that his campaign is in need of fresh funds, Newt Gingrich on Monday began charging $50 to have a photograph taken with him following a campaign speech to Republican groups here in the northernmost part of the state (Delaware). > > It was the first time that the former House speaker has charged those attending one of his public speaking events to pose for a photograph with him. Lately, a member of his campaign staff has been snapping photos of any interested attendee and later posting them online at the campaign’s website, [Newt.org](http://Newt.org). > > On Monday night, those paying for a photograph were also told they could find their photos on Gingrich’s website, after they had filled out a form providing their credit card information. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/59 "2012-03-27T14:34:53Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > March 26th: The Gingrich campaign is now [charging individuals](http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-begins-charging-50-photos-events-211722126.html) who wish to be photographed with the former Speaker at campaign events: He might have better luck doing it [the other way around](http://bestofcalvinandhobbes.com/2012/03/calvins-world-class-sales-trick-the-pitcher-of-plague/). ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2012, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077/60 "2012-03-28T13:29:35Z")
Gingrich [changes campaign managers; lays off 1/3 of staff](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/28/gingrich-faults-fundraising-for-campaign-changes/?hpt=hp_t3). > [@](#): > > Spokesperson R.C. Hammond said the “campaign is being redesigned to make it convention ready,” … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/documenting-the-downfall-of-newt/612077.md?page=4)