National Review: Anyone But Newt
This afternoon, National Review issued an anti-Gingrich appeal—or a de facto Romney endorsement, depending on how you look at it. While they're at it, almost as an afterthought, NR's editors disqualify Perry from consideration too.
[T]he White House seems winnable next year, and with it a majority in both houses of Congress, so that much of this conservative consensus could actually become law. A conservative majority on the Supreme Court, a halt to the march of regulation, free-market health-care policies: All of them seem within our grasp. But none of them is assured, and the costs of failure — either a failure to win the election, or a failure to govern competently and purposefully afterward — are as large as the opportunity.
We fear that to nominate former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the frontrunner in the polls, would be to blow this opportunity.
[...]
Gingrich is not the only candidate whom we believe conservatives should, regretfully, exclude from consideration for the presidency. Governor Perry has done an exemplary job in Texas but has seemed curiously and persistently unable to bring gravity to the national stage.
Three other candidates deserve serious consideration. Governor Huntsman has a solid record, notwithstanding his sometimes glib foreign-policy pronouncements; his main weakness is his apparent inability, so far, to forge a connection with conservative voters outside Utah. Governor Romney won our endorsement last time, in part because some of the other leading candidates were openly hostile to important elements of conservatism. He is highly intelligent and disciplined, and he takes conservative positions on all the key issues. We still think he would make a fine president, but time and ceaseless effort have not yet overcome conservative voters’ skepticism about the liberal aspects of his record and his managerial disposition. Senator Santorum was an effective legislator. He deserves credit for highlighting, more than any other candidate, the need for public policies that topple barriers to middle-class aspirations. Weighing against him is a lack of executive experience.
[...]
At the moment we think it important to urge Republicans to have the good sense to reject a hasty marriage to Gingrich, which would risk dissolving in acrimony.
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Comments:
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Okay, specifically, what did Newt do that made his supporting cast unhappy? And was their unhappiness at all justified?
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
So can any of Newt's supporters explain, with evidence, why Newt was forced to resign his speakership and seat and why so many of his former colleagues either refuse to support him or are openly opposed to him?
Why, if there is nothing substantially problematic about Newt, have nearly all the most respected conservative commentators and media outlets expressed so much resistance to him?
Why is someone with supposedly such an amazing record and political skill receiving so little support from people who have followed his career longest and worked with him most?
And why did it take all the recent Newtonians so long to come around to him? If Newt is so great, why is he surging so relatively late and why does he have such a headwind against him?
I don't want to present any false choices. So, with evidence and without reflexively blaming the "establishment" and "RINOs", why does Newt face so much antipathy?
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Mark Steyn weighs in on NR warning people off of Gingrich.
Edited on December 15, 2011 at 8:38pmSep '10
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
If NR is against New Gingrich then it should have kept silent until it was willing to endorse a candidate. Coming out against any candidate seemed in poor taste. There will be enough negative articles about whomever we nominate in the fall. I don't need the magazine of WFB writing one to be used later against us. What is NR going to do if Newt wins the nomination? Retract what they wrote? Scrub it off the site? Tell everyone to move along, nothing to see here?
Also, I love Steyn, Will, Hanson and NR. I read them religiously and will continue to despite their strong denouncements of Newt. But I have to say there is a tone deafness by all of them coming out and saying 'No' to a particular candidate. I would say the Right is in a pretty anti-establishment mood with the government and the GOP "establishment". To come out and tell GOP voters no to a particular candidate is a rather in artful way to persuade us.
Stick to positive endorsements. Those of who are just mere names in a telephone book are tired of being told what to do and think.
Edited on December 15, 2011 at 9:27pmSep '10
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
BThompson:
And why did it take all the recent Newtonians so long to come around to him? If Newt is so great, why is he surging so relatively late and why does he have such a headwind against him?
This is a straw man. We're early in the election process. Many eventual nominees and would-be presidents have been this far back in the polls this early in the campaign in the past.
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
I'll bet a lot of pundits and commentators are tired of being told what to say.
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Ronaldus Maximus
BThompson:
And why did it take all the recent Newtonians so long to come around to him? If Newt is so great, why is he surging so relatively late and why does he have such a headwind against him?
This is a straw man. We're early in the election process. Many eventual nominees and would-be presidents have been this far back in the polls this early in the campaign in the past. · Dec 15 at 12:35pm
How can a question be a straw man? What I asked was not an argument, it was an inquiry, one you still haven't answered. And if you just don't like this particular question, you can take a stab at any of the others instead.
Sep '10
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
BThompson
I'll bet a lot of pundits and commentators are tired of being told what to say. · Dec 15 at 12:41pm
Fair enough. I still think it was unwise of NRO to jump into the anti-Newt fray. I would have been better to stay positive and endorse a candidate. Not denounce one.
Sep '10
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
BThompson
How can a question be a straw man? What I asked was not an argument, it was an inquiry, one you still haven't answered. And if you just don't like this particular question, you can take a stab at any of the others instead. · Dec 15 at 12:44pm
Where Newt is now in the polls is irrelevant to his electability as it was in say, 1991 when Bill Clinton was polling at about 6%. The question is no more probative than why Romney is stuck at 20-25% after essentially running for the GOP nomination for over four years is relevant. It's still early in the campaign with a packed field.
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
You still haven't answered the question Ronaldus, it's a straightforward query. Why did it take so long for Newt's supporters to come around to him? That other presidents gained their support late doesn't explain why Newt gained his support so late.
Newt was the most well known candidate in the field with the longest, and to hear his current supporters argue, the most accomplished record of conservative achievement. He also is one of, if not the most, eloquent and intelligent candidates. With all that going for him, why did he start so far back in the pack and stay there for months while many (most?) of his current supporters jumped on the bandwagon of several other candidates? If his accomplishments as speaker are so impressive and the concerns about his record as baseless or overblown as his current supporters contend, why did they resist getting behind Newt for so long? I think the answer to that question will say something important about the way Newt's current supporters are vetting him.
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Well, here's Wikipedia's entry on his resignation, which is how I've always understood it. And somehow...it doesn't seem all that different from why Thatcher resigned: bad polling figures.
Jan '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Diane, there is a lot that could be drilled down on in that short entry, but even taken at face value, you sum that explanation up as "bad polling figures"? I don't see how that entry gets simply reduced down to such an innocuous characterization.
Edited on December 16, 2011 at 12:10amSep '10
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
You're right because as I said I don't find the question probative. It's early in the process and people are kicking the tires. I'm leaning towards Newt today but might change my mind later. I don't think it demonstrates any weakness in the candidate. It's a flawed field with no true conservatives running for office and Paul who is too isolationist for my taste.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this.
We can agree on our our shared affinity for Niall Ferguson!
Apr '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Well, heres Wikipedias entry on his resignation, which is how I've always understood it. And somehow...it doesnt seem all that different from why Thatcher resigned: bad polling figures.
Does the widespread belief that he was responsible for Clinton's second term and 1998 defeat concern anyone? Say what you will about Thatcher, she was great for her party at the ballot box, building and keeping a great majority for over a decade, compared to not one good victory followed by a couple of defeats (including the sole post-war exception to the 6 year itch), over 4 years.
Thatcher was taken down by unpopular (but good) policies she delivered and a final policy battle. Newt was taken down by being a bad politician who failed to deliver on even those of his popular policies that Clinton didn't like (the elimination of the department of Energy etc.)
Apr '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Yeah, Newt says that he's moved back from it, but like all his apologies (global warming policy, mandates, food stamps, personal promises, supporting the UN), it is insincere. Or, at least, I've not heard him repent of his statement in May that he'd support a version of Obamacare's mandate. Supporting mandates, other government intervention in healthcare, ethanol, General Electric, and Freddie has been his primary line of work since '98 (although it's not "lobbying", because his contracts said that they weren't "lobbying"...)
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
BThompson: Diane, there is a lot that could be drilled down on in that short entry, but even taken at face value, you sum that explanation up as "bad polling figures"? I don't see how that entry gets simply reduced down to such an innocuous characterization. · Dec 15 at 2:40pm
Edited on Dec 15 at 03:10 pm
Granted, it was more than bad polling figures — it was deep unpopularity and a really rough midterm election. But the reasons for the unpopularity and rough midterm election? The govt shutdown the Clinton impeachment trials...seems to me that Newt shouldered more of the blame on those things than he ought to have. Perhaps I'm mistaken, though. A bit of history I need to brush up on this weekend.
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
I would switch out Santorum in favor of Perry, but overall, I'm puzzled by the anti-NR outcry. Is it really so terrible to try to winnow the field? Far from it -- we need to winnow the field and focus on the people who would plausibly make good presidents. We might disagree as to how that field should be narrowed, but NR has a right to its opinion.
As to Gingrich, my view is that he would be a catastrophic mistake.
Apr '11
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
Avik, it's nothing against NR. You get the same outcry when podcast guests support Romney. Alternatively, go to the comments on the last Left Coast/ Right Coast for the ugliest personal abuse you'll find on the site. It's the same when politicians endorse him; Pawlenty had been some people's pick, but the endorsement meant that he'd never been a decent politician or a conservative etc. It used to be the case that commenters would receive a good dose of ad hominems, too, but now there's only a couple of commenters who can be relied on to descend to that. If you hang around on the site more, you'll probably find that you get treated better pretty quickly.
Jul '10
Re: National Review: Anyone But Newt
I'm thinking the voters should get a shot at winnowing the field. A lot of these vapors vanish in the first month of primaries.
NR is an excellent magazine. It is the only magazine I have consistently subscribed to for 20+ years.
I don't hold Newt's speakership against him, and anyone with real meat to bring forward should supply citations or member posts as needed, not vague innuendo. This is Ricochet, not the Atlantic.
Newt led the 1996 freshmen and the Republican chairs of House committees were the whipped dogs of decades as 2nd bananas in a Democrat legislature and they acted like it. All of this "Contract" stuff was a repudiation of their endless compromises with their progressive counterparts in order to build a resumé. They are the same lot that demanded a better legislative resumé from Bachmann when she rightly and brilliantly turned to raising Tea Party coffers rather than wasting time on bills that the Pelosi Diktat would schedule for a vote.
Newt's meanderings from the back bench since have been the stuff of disaster. Individual mandate's and caught indelecto flagrante with Nanny Pelosi on the AGW couch for two.