He has dropped a lot of hints, and an unscientific straw poll shows self-identified conservatives favor him.
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Will he run?
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If so, is he nominable?
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If he wins the Pub nomination, is he electable?
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What kind of POTUS would he make?
He’s gotta be crazy.
No way can he take the Center.
It would be handing the White House to his opponent.
1, 2, 3. No, he’s just trying to get himself some serious air time again. He’s missed the national spotlight. Maybe he has a new book to flog, too?
- Pretty much like Bush.
Not if he’s smart enough to write books.
In my opinion, Gingrich is running an unofficial campaign. He’s in the running enough that he can announce as a credible candidate if the opportunity arises. So he’s waiting to see how the other candidates’ campaigns are going - if nobody locks up the Republican nomination and the Democrats look beatable and he thinks he’s got a shot, he’ll step in.
I doubt it
Certainly…he’s got the right creds to at least have a shot at the nomination. Whether he’d get it or not is another matter, but he COULD get it.
Depends on who the Dems run…but I kind of doubt it myself. I don’t think he has the right appeal…at least not in the current environment.
Probably better than folks would think…assuming the unlikely even that he actually got elected. He’s pretty bright for one thing. I seriously doubt many in these parts would enjoy his presidency however. 
:rolleyes: Thats your anti-conservative prejudice talking there Elvis. Newt, for all his flaws (well, some would see them as flaws), is nothing like Bush. For one thing he’s a much more polished politician. For another thing he’s probably an order of magnitude smarter than GW.
I’m not saying you’d enjoy him as president…or that you would suddenly see the conservative light and jump for joy. But a Gingrich presidency would have little resemblance to the last 6 odd years…IMHO anyway.
-XT
Really? He isn’t an ideologue? He isn’t divisive? He’s capable of recognizing and fixing mistakes? Where do you get that?
Bush looked polished when he ran, too. Intelligence does not seem to be a determining factor in a President’s success, either, not compared to personality traits such as the ones I just alluded to - was Woodrow Wilson a better President than Harry Truman, for instance?
Glad you put that caveat in there. Perhaps you’re as capable of recognizing your own prejudices as those you imagine in others?
Did I say any of that? I must have missed it…
Don’t know…what gives you the impression he isn’t?
I guess, for your benifit, I need to say that, yes…he is a bit like Bush in some ways. Yes, for one thing he walks upright. Yes, he is an oxygen breather. Yes, they are both at least nominally hominids. Yes, they both require water to live…and also both eat food occationally. Yes…they are both Republicans.
Um…thats about it I think for the similarities.
:dubious: We are talking about GW Bush here, right? Did you see a different campaign than I did?
Sure…except the one’s you alluded too are mostly superficial similiarites or bullshit sparked by your own prejudices towards all things Republican. Here’s a news flash…I’m not a fan of Gingrich. I certainly wouldn’t vote for the man if he ran…just like I didn’t vote for Bush. But the two men are nothing alike, nor would their presidencies be cookie cutter images of each other. In some ways I think a Gingrich presidency would be worse than the Bush presidency has been because I think Gingrich would be more effective in getting some of his conservative agenda through…while I think Bush by and large just plays at being a conservative. Bush’s main agenda (since 9/11 anyway) has focused on foreign policy to the exclusion of nearly anything resembling a real conservative domestic agenda. Gingrich would push through (IMHO) a much more conservative domestic agenda.
As for Iraq (I figure you are thinking about this anyway), my guess is that on this point they would be mostly in agreement…though Newt might be more flexable about withdrawl if things look hopeless. As I said, he IS smarter than Bush.
My irony meter just went off the charts. 
Certainly I can recognize my own prejudices. I don’t think they come into play on THIS debate too be honest as I don’t like either of the two men we are talking about, nor would I vote for either. I simply recognize that the two men are not very much alike, nor would their agendas as president be similar (in the highly unlikely event Newt actually ran AND won).
Assuming the problem here is that you don’t actually know much about good old Newt, here is a nice Wiki article on the man. Read through it…and if you STILL think that he and Bush are mirror images, or that they have the same agenda…well, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Frankly, as I don’t care about either man, its not worth my time to argue about it.
-XT
I’m afraid so.
I’m afraid so.
Maybe.
If he can stay faithful to his avowed principles AND this wife, perhaps a pretty good one.
Gingrich politically says almost everything I want to hear. He blew his chance as SotH as both a political leader and a spokesman for the moral traditionalist wing of the GOP. I want him to write books & advise decision-makers behind the scenes. I don’t want him as my Presidential candidate. But if he does run, he could well get nominated. And if my only choice is between him & any of the Democrats presently running, I gotta go with Gingrich.
I like Newt. He’s very smart, he’s a fiscal conservative, he leans more libertarian than many other candidates, and he’s a straight shooter who says what he believes and does what he says he’ll do.
Is he electable? I have no idea. He certainly wouldn’t have been 8 years ago, but Americans like comeback stories, and Newt has spent his time in the wilderness learning from his mistakes. He’s much less combative now than he was then. He’s much more willing to work with the other side when they have common interests - last year he had a pretty productive relationship with Hillary Clinton, for example.
Remember Richard Nixon’s loss to Kennedy, and his petulant “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more.” comment. He then vanished from the public stage. Eight years later, he was president. Reagan was defeated for the Republican nomination in 1976, and went on to win in 1980. So nothing’s impossible.
What is really going to tell regarding Newt’s chances is where the public is with regards to Republican ideas in 2008 vs how they feel about the Republican party and the current occupants of the Senate and White House. If the people still like Republicans in principle, but hate the current party, Newt’s got a really good shot at an ‘outsider’ candidacy. He hasn’t been present for any of the major snafus of the last six years, and in fact, Republicans are often heard talking about much they miss ‘Gingrich Republicans’ - the Gingrich revolution in 1994 was all about fiscal responsibility, small government, and intelligent management. Those Republicans wanted to shut down the Department of Education, kill pork barrel spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget. The current Republicans spend all their time yapping about gays, stem cells, and the ten commandments while presiding over huge deficits and huge increases to agencies like the Dept of Education, while pushing through as many earmarks as they possibly can.
So Gingrich has a story to sell - “Republicans - let’s go back to what we were when Reagan was around.” Newt was seen as being the flag-bearer for ‘Reagan Republicans’, and I think there’s still a big yearning for that in the Republican party.
Can he win a general election? I don’t know. It’s really impossible to predict how people will react to him until he actually gets out there and starts campaigning.
Will he run? He’s already answered that. He’s keeping the door open for a ‘late candidacy’, should the field look particularly weak by the end of the year. If the current crop of Republicans fail to inspire confidence, if they eat themselves with attack ads and wind up looking like damaged goods a couple of months before the primaries, then I think you’ll see Gingrich step into the mix. But if, at the end of the year, there’s a clear front-runner who looks electable and has the rank and file of the party behind him, Gingrich will stay out.
- He may run
- He might get the nomination
- He’s electable only in a best-case scenario for the Pubs. Most people seem to instinctively dislike him as a person. They wouldn’t want to drink beer with him. And the Pubbies are going to have some ENORMOUSLY effective ammunition to use against Gingrich viz his personal life. All things being equal, the center would bolt wholesale for even a mediocre Dem candidate. Obama would cream Newt. Hillary would be a tougher fight. Edwards would beat Newt, too.
- He’d be a much better President than GWB, but that’s not saying a hell of a lot.
- No.
- No.
- No.
- Gingrich is pig-headed and not interested in compromise. His record in Congress bears this out; he was always about beating back the Democratic Party, and never about working with them. I’ve seen him speak and he does like to talk, but has no interest in listening. A good president would be one who’s interested in dialogue; Gingrich, who either won’t or can’t listen, would be a disaster as a president. If elected, he’d lose reëlection, unless some sort of national tragedy occurred that he was able to exploit for political gain. I mean, that’s worked before…
No, I did, and yes, apparently you missed it altogether. It’s right next to the part where I suggested, not strongly enough for you apparently, that intelligence is not a decisive factor in determining the quality of a President, compared to personality traits. Since I need to be clearer for you, obviously, here it is: The same personality traits that have made Bush an utter failure are largely shared by Gingrich.
Odd, isn’t it, that don’t give Bush credit for much intelligence compared to Gingrich, despite his Harvard and Yale degrees. We’ve been over this a number of times, but could it just be that Bush’s incuriosity, a personality trait, makes you think he lacks intelligence?
Go look up “projection” sometime. Gawdamighty.
Wrong. It’ll be over shortly after, if not before, the next inauguration. You’re projecting again.
Wrong again.
You wrote a pretty long post about precisely that before reaching that realization. :rolleyes:
Just FTR, here you’ll find the text of his 1996 campaign memo recommending the use of words such as
to describe their fellow Americans.
Got anything more to say about “divisiveness”, xtisme? :dubious:
This is not an insult…I ask this in all seriousness. Can you not read? I didn’t say ANYTHING about ‘divisiveness’…nothing. So…its an odd question to ask if I have anything MORE to say about a subject I’ve said nothing on.
Again…its not meant as an insult. I’m genuinely curious.
-XT
Buttressing your argument, Nixon’s “you won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more” comment was after his 1962 loss to Pat Brown (Jerry Brown’s dad) for the governorship of California. So in actuality, six years later, he was elected President.
[hijack]
Which is why biker bars are the most courteous and polite places to hang out.
[/hijack]
- Maybe.
- No.
- No.
- Dunno, and don’t want to find out.
You know what Bob Dole said about Gingrich’s ideas - he joked that there was a room with several massive file cabinets labeled “Newt’s Ideas” with one small two-drawer file cabinet in a corner labeled “Newt’s Good Ideas.” Dole had it right - Newt was in love with a lot of off-the-wall ideas of his. How much as that changed? And even if it has, what does that leave you with?
Two things:
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The Gingrich Republicans didn’t exactly stay away from the ‘kook’ issues. A wave of ‘abstinence-only’ laws got passed by the Gingrich Congresses, and of course they passed a bunch of nutty anti-environmental laws. I can probably come across other bits of Gingrich-era House kookiness given some time.
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Gingrich was also a driver of the Clinton impeachment - even after the voters had repudiated the idea. A lot of Americans - and remember that Clinton was loved more by moderates than by lefties - still do a slow burn when they remember that.
Reminding the public of Newt’s role in Clinton’s impeachment would sink Newt in the general election, assuming he started off with a snowball’s chance in hell.
Originally, I would have thought there was no way Newt would run. Now, however, the Republican side is turning into a mess. Giulinai is way ahead in the polls and I still have to think conservatives are going to look at him and want to blanch. Yes he happened to be the mayor on 9/11. And yes, his claim to heroism on that day isn’t complicated by running and hiding in Nebraska. But that’s it. Can Rudi really run 9/11 all the way to the White House? Will Republicans really take him despite his stance on the so-called moral issues like gay rights that have been at the core of the party in recent years? If he does win does that mean the whole no-conservative movement is dead and buried? McCain seems to have incurred the wrath of Bush loyalists for what they perceive as his disloyalty to their man. Actually I think McCain has stood by Bush quite a lot, but never mind that. A lot of Republicans seem to have sworn him off no matter what. Romney is busily changing his stance on every issue ever created and the rest of the field is still trying to get noticed. Gingrich, despite all his baggage has to see an opening here. I have little doubt he is thinking about running.
Could he win the nomination? Maybe. Like I said, everyone else is floundering and I think Gingrich is still a hero on the extreme right and the AM radio dial. He could dominate in the south.
Could he win the general election? I doubt it. He was never popular outside of neocon circles even when he had his day in the sun. Outside of the south, Democratic candidates often invoked his name in an attempt to tie their opponents to him. He became a symbol of right-wing excess. He doesn’t exude warmth and he’s pretty portly to boot. He has a lot of record (including scandal) to defend.