What’s so ignorant about it? That’s the way it’s always worked in the past. If it worked for Reagan and for McCain, and it worked for Gingrich while he was in Congress, why wouldn’t it work now? I guarantee, if the general election came down to happily-married with his first wife and two kids who are turning out OK Barack Obama versus serial-marrying-and-adulturing Newt Gingrich, the so-called “family values” voters would still think that Gingrich had better “family values” than Obama.
The cupboard is bare. It is like being snowed in for a week and eating all the good stuff early. Then you look in the cupboard and all that is left is the soups you bought because they were on sale. Nobody likes them. Nobody wants them. But the Repubs have to make a selection.
This is sort of like the position the Dems were in in 2004. I don’t think anybody was really excited about Kerry (certainly not in the same way people were excited about Obama four years later). If you recall, it was Howard Dean getting most of the attention in the run up to the primaries. But then his campaign imploded, and Kerry just ended up being the guy who seemed most likely to beat Bush, despite his lack of charisma. A lot of the votes that Kerry received that year (including mine) weren’t so much votes for him, as they were votes against Bush.
Tell you what- give me ONE example of Ronald Reagan proclaiming publicly that he had repented (of ANYTHING) and that Jesus had forgiven him (for ANYTHING).
Think of an instance. If this meme is as established as you pretend, it should only take you 5 seconds to come up with ONE example.
Welll…?
Or, if Republicans want to be more optimistic, we can pretend it’s 1992.
In 1992, the exciting potential candidates for the Democrats (Mario Cuomo, Lloyd Bemntsen, Richard Gephardt, Al Gore, Bill Bradley, Sam Nunn) all looked at George H.W. Bush’s poll standing and wimped out, figuring it would be easier to win against Dan Quayle in 2000.
The Democratic field looked anemic that year. NOBODY was excited about Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas. But as it turned out, the incumbent was weaker than he looked, and a Democratic candidate who had once seemed like a joke (remember how Clinton was mocked for his boring keynote spech at the 1992 Convention?) turned out to be a successful, popular two-term President.
If unemployment stays at or over 9%, Obama will be vulnerable, and even a seemingly lame-o GOP candidate can win.
Didn’t Perot get close to 20% of the vote that year? Not all of it would have gone to Bush, but IIRC Perot stripped away a significant number of otherwise-for-Bush votes.
Not that that turns your post on its head, but the Perot factor has to be accounted for. It seems that another third party candidate is likely to do the same thing to the GOP again–a disgruntled tea party candidate here and there and you’re missing crucial votes.
The polling data I’ve seen indicates that Perot drew about equally from people who would have otherwise voted for Bush or Clinton – much of his support was the “throw the bums out” vote that would have gone to Clinton or just stayed home.
I predict that not only will Gingrich run, but that he will win the Rep primary. Why? Because whenever a Democratic president/candidate is vunerable, we alway nominate exactly the wrong person to run against them.
Plus, Reagan had been married to Nancy for a long time then, and he got divorced as a movie star, and they were allowed to do that even back then.
Unlikely. He lost to McCain even before the tea partiers. I suspect the psychotic right thinks that McCain lost for being too librul, and so are not going to go with the leftmost candidate around. Plus he’s got MittCare hanging over his head, no matter how much he tries to evade it.
It’s too bad, since Mitt is actually sane, but I don’t think he has a chance.
You may be right - I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
But I’m riding the “electability” plus “runner-up” train until proven otherwise. 
Although my Dad, a pretty centrist Republican, can’t stand Mitt - maybe there is such a thing as a politician that is too phony.
Somebody mentioned it tangentially upthread - Newt has a network of Republicans in office in Washington DC, and at some level, in assemblies and statehouses all over the country, that were part of the revolution he led when he was speaker. Even though he’s been out of elected office for some time, he’s been “around”. He may be successful at marshalling enough of these influential party figures to make a serious dent in the primaries.
What’s he done for them lately? I would suggest that he has done very little in in the last 10 or 15 years to shore up support for a run at president.
Quoth astorian:
What’s important isn’t what he ever actually said; it’s how people perceive him. Ask any member of the “Moral Majority” why they’re not upset about Reagan’s (or McCain’s, or Gingrich’s) philandering, and they’ll all tell you it’s because they repented and found religion.
You aren’t crediting the fundamental loyalty of the politician. With a politician, its never “what have you done for me?”, but rather, “what can you do for me?”
He’s built quite a cash machine. I wonder if he has a PAC that doles out money to right wing pols and causes.
Translation: you CAN’T come up with a single instance of Ronald Reagan appealing to fundies by saying or even implying that Jesus had forgiven him, but you’re going to keep right on pretending that he did… but too subtly for anyone but clever folks like YOU to perceive.
Moreover, if there WAS any philandering on Reagan’s part, it never became an electoral issue in 1980 or 1984, so he never HAD to play the “I’m forgiven” game.
I don’t think Reagan really talked about religion very much at all, other than that he was generally in favor of it. Fundies liked him because he could be generally counted on to be against abortion and gay rights and smut on tv and all the other things that fundies are against; not because of any deep religious feeling on Reagan’s part.
Depends what you mean by “appealing to fundies”. He never made an appeal on those grounds, but fundies did find him appealing on those grounds.
WTF? A whole bunch of people are running.
Are you asking who will win the nomination? Hell if I know, but I can give you a long list of names I think have a better chance of winning the nomination than Newt does.
Mitt Romney
Tim Pawlenty
Mitch Daniels
Mike Huckabee
Michele Bachmann
Hell, even Sarah Palin, though not by much.
Jim DeMint, if he decided to run.
Each of these people has a better chance of winning the GOP nomination than the Newt does.