If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
At Telegraph blogs today, my colleague Tim Stanley - a generally percipient analyst of the US political scene - claims that Newt's victory in South Carolina represented some kind of victory for the Tea Party.
Then came South Carolina, where religious and fiscal conservatives finally got it together and backed a candidate against Mitt Romney. Exit polls suggest that Newt Gingrich won by appealing to every Tea Party demographic – middle income voters, angry white men, regular church attendees etc. To put it into to perspective, these are the only categories of voter that Mitt Romney won: people with an income greater than $200,000, self-described “moderates” or “liberals”, folks who think religion doesn’t matter in picking a candidate, those who “oppose” the Tea Party.
What is this "Tea Party" of which Tim speaks? It's certainly not one that I recognize. The Tea Party I know and admire is defined by nothing except its opposition to Big Government in all its manifestations. I can't see it consciously rooting for a rent-seeking DC insider who profited from the taxpayer via Fannie Mae and who recently attacked Mitt Romney's record at Bain from the left, as if somehow creative destruction were a bad idea that needed to be extirpated by a benign, caring state.
If any Tea Partiers voted for Newt - and I'm quite sure they did, given Sarah Palin's endorsement - I'd suggest that would have been a gesture of frustration rather than ideological kinship. This doesn't mean that a character as principle-free as Newt doesn't have the ability to remould himself in the Tea Party's image. Just that if that's what he really wants to do - and I hope he will - he'd better get moving quick.
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Comments:
Mar '11
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
das_motorhead
This is exactly where I am, and have been for a while.
Me, too. I don't believe the conventional wisdom that Mr Romney is the most likely to beat Mr Obama.
Mr Obama would most likely run rings round Mr Romney.
So, at least Newt will make our case -- if he goes down in flames at least he will have given it his best shot, and ours.
Maybe the USA will become like Europe, and there is nothing more to be done.
Or, maybe not.
Jul '10
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
George Savage
You are 100 percent right.
Right now I'm betting that Newt's sense of grandiosity--the certainty that he is destined to be a figure of historical consequence--will align with his country's moment of crisis to deliver, if not what we want, what we need.
I don't see anyone else stressing the Declaration and Constitution and effectively building from first principles. · 9 minutes ago
100% Wrong.
Why do we always buy the leftist assumptions and leftist history?
The Congress got shut down in November 1995 to 1996.The first lasted five days in November 1995, the second shutdown lasted 21 days, from Dec. 15, 1995 to Jan. 6. 1996.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was signed into law in August 1996.
The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which included the largest capital gains tax cut in U.S. history, was passed August 5, 1997.
So his two biggest legislative victories took place after the shutdown.
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
Oh dear. I'm persuaded by all of your arguments in favor of Newt. And by all your arguments agin him. Is this a good sign? I'm not sure that it is. Where I am at the moment, depressingly, is Obama getting a second term. But I'll give you one thing - a Newt/Obama head to head would be very entertaining.
Apr '11
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
Franco
James Delingpole:
As to attacks on Bain "from the left" I think that's inaccurate. Critisizing modern corporate practices, and critisizing someone who pretends he's freakin' Bill Gates because he shuffled paper between insurers, bankers and lawyers after 3 million dollars worth of unfair slams in Iowa, is forgivable in my book. · 5 hours ago
You're thinking of the wrong kind of investment banking. Mitt took over companies and reformed them, getting involved at every level from physically stocking shelves to building new factories. Even if you were on the ball there, something being forgivable in your book, or even objectively forgivable, is not the same thing as it not being from the left. Attacks on capitalist practices that include, amongst the criticisms, the investors including some wealthy individuals, not mentioning the pension funds and so on.... That's straightforward knuckledragging leftism of the sort that the better kind of Dem would be ashamed of. It's something that Newt is periodically ashamed of. Sadly, decency and the avoidance of shame are not strong motivators for him.
Sep '10
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
All I'd like to say is that I find Ann Coulter's siding with the Republican establishment mob about Newt kind of Demonic. I don't know about the rest of you.
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
Michael Tee 100% Wrong.
3 hours ago
Fair point. I'm guilty of ignoring the specific charges, which you rebut effectively, and agreeing mainly with a popular if inchoate notion that support for Gingrich is a vote for the Bad Newt of the wilderness years--the man on Nancy Pelosi's global warming couch.
Apr '11
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
George Savage
Michael Tee 100% Wrong.
3 hours ago
Fair point. I'm guilty of ignoring the specific charges, which you rebut effectively, and agreeing mainly with a popular if inchoate notion that support for Gingrich is a vote for the Bad Newt of the wilderness years--the man on Nancy Pelosi's global warming couch. · 0 minutes ago
If your test is "will we elect a man promising to enact the environmental policies of increased subsidies for "clean energy" he developed and supported with Pelosi", I'm pretty sure he's still bad Newt. If you meant something else by the Pelosi line, the question may be more difficult to answer.
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
I agree, and I'm beginning to think that entertainment value is the right criterion for our ticket. Four more years of President Sourpuss is such a dreary prospect, perhaps voters will go for the guy with some zing - warts and all.
Feb '11
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
James Of England
Attacks on capitalist practices that include, amongst the criticisms, the investors including some wealthy individuals, not mentioning the pension funds and so on.... That's straightforward knuckledragging leftism of the sort that the better kind of Dem would be ashamed of.
Fascinating. So criticizing the practices of certain corporations, including that of Mittens, is beyond the pale. Even noticing- matter of factly- that certain individuals involved are rich is despicable class warfare.
Meanwhile, employees of various corporations are continuously and contemptuously derided because- in one instance here- they declined to vote in favor of more pay cuts and- in general- because they are paid more than many foreigners, and wish to continue that. And if the work can't be moved to the foreigners the political class will just bring the foreigners here- legally or illegally.
Nope. No class warfare there.
No wonder Mittens despises us: We're all a bunch of bloody communists!
May '10
Re: If Newt is the 'Tea Party candidate' I'm a banana
You're a banana....though less a-peeling. I've been to Tea Party rallies since before they were conservative chic. And Newt is pretty much on track of the main thrusts of the rallies I've attended.