Newt Wins South Carolina
Politico and the NYTimes are reporting a Gingrich victory.
Here's my analysis: Republicans are tired of tongue-tied, deer-in-the-headlights candidates. They're tired of gaffes and weasel-worders and stammering apologists and candidates who always need to have their words clarified by handlers. They're tired of candidates who can't debate or think on their feet or answer complicated and embarrassing questions. They're tired of watching presidential debates with their hearts in their mouths.
They compared the way Gingrich answered the question about his ex-wife to the way Romney answered the question about his tax returns and they decided that they'd rather have Gingrich go up against Obama.
It's high-wire-act fatigue. And they may have made the right choice.
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Comments:
Dec '10
Re: Newt Wins South Carolina
Misthiocracy
Well, only because she turned out to be such an unreliable witness. If she'd provided a more reliable "bombshell" it might have gone the other way.
I think Newt dodged a bullet there. · 3 hours ago
And if there had been a reliable witness to Mitt Romney raping and murdering a French girl when he was on his mission, that would have hurt him. Except that Mitt never raped and murdered anybody, and Newt never asked his wife for an open marriage. I guess Newt dodged a bullet by not ever doing what he was accused of.
ABC did with its Marianne interview for Newt what CBS did with its National Guard letter for W: showed that they are far more eager to push lies to smear Republicans than they are to present news in a dispassionate and even-handed (dare I say "fair and balanced"?) manner.
Apr '11
Re: Newt Wins South Carolina
Joseph Eagar
James Of England
Michael Tee
James Of England
He came into power on a huge mandate. The budget was balanced (although, only kinda; debt continued to grow) on the back of the dot.com boom and high taxes that he'd opposed, but now takes credit for; taxes when Newt stepped down were 20% of gdp.
[Ed.: Comments deleted]
I did explain what I meant by the "kinda" claim. Debt continued to grow. You can point to other figures that include sneaky accounting with the social security trust fund, but my claim stands. Did you not know this? ·
What about as a percentage of GDP, or adjusted for inflation? ·
By both measures it's down, but that's still not the general meaning of a "balanced budget", which is expenditures equaling income and thus would not require the issuing of further debt, and nor is it what is suggested by the tables showing income and expenditures. Essentially, a portion of the payroll tax is double counted for these things.
It's still impressive to get the "kinda" balanced budget, but the strong claim partly relies on both Democrats and Republicans benefiting from it.
Dec '11
Re: Newt Wins South Carolina
I just don't see how Newt can peel off enough independents and centrist Democrats to win.
Dec '10
Re: Newt Wins South Carolina
By convincing them that 4 more years of Obama will be a disaster for them as well as for the country as a whole. Reagan managed it in 1980, even as the Democrats savaged him as a senile, dangerous fool.