Gingrich will run

Newt Gingrich, the man whose non-stop mouth is permanently disconnected from any mind or soul, has informed associates he plans to run for president. How many inadequate and unviable political figures, not to mention ludicrous clowns like Gingrich and Huckabee, will be candidates for the GOP nomination in the coming year? Will there be a single viable candidate? Does such a one exist? Why, in a party in which everyone devotedly calls himself a follower of Ronald Reagan, is there not a single genuine follower of Ronald Reagan?

When an outspokenly jihadist Muslim U.S. Army major carried out a jihadist mass murder at a U.S. Army base, and the current Democratic administration issued a report about the attack which not only said nothing about his jihadism, but never even referred to the fact that he is a Muslim and never used the word “Islam,” the entire Republican Party remained silent about it. There was no Republican protest of this horrifying coverup by our own government. Yes, domestic Islamic terrorism was not an issue during Reagan’s career. But if he were alive and active today, would he have remained silent about, and thus have participated in, the left’s cover-up of Islamic jihad in America? I don’t think so.

Seeking the repeal of Obamacare is essential. But it is not enough.

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Andrew E. writes:

You ask if there are any viable Republican presidential candidates. Keep an eye on Representative Michele Bachmann from Minnesota. She’s terrific on fiscal issues, ,Obamacare and health care generally. She’s smart, articulate and feisty. She is not afraid to duke it out with the left. Like all conservative Republicans she’s good on illegal immigration, but I think we know far less about her on the big cultural issues such as legal mass Hispanic/Third World immigration and the feminization and homosexualization of the military (fingers crossed). I don’t know what her foreign policy would look like or what her understanding of Islam is and how it would affect such policy. I believe she’s a strong opponent of the scan and grope regime and would push hard for profiling in our airports. A good first step. She’s a prodigious fundraiser and has a ton of support from TEA Party voters and I believe she’s at least considering running given the dearth of good candidates in the party.

Stephen T. writes:

While Romney won the New Hampshire straw poll, check out the zooming popularity of Mike Huckabee in the Midwest red states. He will leave Gingrich in the dust: his Andy Griffith persona is really going over big and he is topping most of the polls for presidential preference in flyover territory. This is another reason I’ve never been convinced that “red state succession” would create some sort of homeland of conservative wisdom between the coasts. Actually, there are a lot of simple-minded, gullible people in that region and when Pastor Huckabee wipes away the tears and tells them Mexican illegal aliens are the modern-day equivalent of slaves, and amnesty is a Bible-prophesied gift to America to give us a second chance to make amends for slavery, they believe him—even as he flies away in a private jet provided by millionaire contributors who hired the tens of thousands of illegal Mexicans Huckabee imported into Arkansas via an agency he set up specifically for that purpose while governor. I expect he will be the Republican nominee and, if so, I will actively oppose him. And not by simply staying at home on election day: I’ll gladly vote for Obama over this treasonous phony, any day.

N. writes:

Perhaps like Giuliani, Gingrich has so many yes-men around him nowadays that there is no one to point out the obvious: many voters don’t know who he is anymore, many other voters simply don’t like him, and finally at his age and physical condition the demands of a modern campaign against Obama “in all 57 states” as it were would be just too much to handle. With no one to point out the obvious or no one that Gingrich will listen to, a campaign seems possible.

Another possibility is that this is simply Gingrich’s ego leading him to a kind of “fantasy baseball camp”, in order that he can once again enjoy the drama of being interviewed by the MSM. In other words, a political campaign as a form of vanity press.

LA replies:

Yes. For Gingrich and others, the next most fulfilling and presidential thing to actually being president is being a presidential candidate. So why not run? Running is not about becoming president. It’s about the enjoyment of playing the quasi-presidential role of presidential candidate.

David B. writes:

Regarding the lack of viable candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination: the eternally stupid rank and file Republicans who have made Huckabee the leader in the GOP presidential preference polls have either forgotten, or more likely, don’t care about this story.

Steve W. writes:

You wrote: “Running is not about becoming president.” Exactly. For candidates like Gingrich, Giuliani, and perhaps even Palin, it is about political celebrity, not political leadership. My guess is that Giuliani (whom I’ve liked in the past) is making noises about running again for president because he either is writing or planning to write another book and needs to keep his name in the press. If Giuliani were truly interested in holding office, he would have run for governor or U.S. senator in New York, where he “coulda been a contender.” Gingrich’s motives are even more transparently vain; unlike Giuliani, he has no political base whatsoever. I’m not impressed with any of the retreads from 2008. If that is the best the GOP can come up with, then I’m afraid we’re looking at four more years of Obama.

LA replies:

The psychology being discussed here motivates not only the candidates, but those supporting them. For example, David Frum, John Avalon, and their “No Labels” bunch are supporting Giuliani. Now, do these people actually expect that Giuliani, who won a grand total of one delegate in 2008 after being touted for years as the inevitable nominee (a claim I consistently mocked for several years prior to 2008), has any chance of winning the nomination in 2012? I don’t think so. Why, then, do they support him? Because he is the most visible and convenient symbol of their own, “No Labels” ideology. By backing a candidate who represents that ideology, they think they help to advance their ideology.

So, at least in come cases, it’s not about seeking to become president or backing someone who has a realistic chance of becoming president; it’s about keeping oneself (if one is the candidate) or one’s ideology (if one is backing that candidate) in the public eye. It’s marketing and self-placement.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with a person who has little chance of winning running for the nomination as a way of advancing his ideas. But prominent mainstream politicians such as Giuliani and Gingrich are not supposed to be ideological or prophetic figures; they are supposed to have a serious chance of winning. And since they don’t, their candidacies only serve egotistical purposes.

Sage McLaughlin writes:

Maybe I’m just exposing a prejudice here, but at the present moment I’m categorically against any female candidate for the U.S. Presidency, including Michelle Bachmann, and especially on the Republican ticket. Personally, I’d march over a cliff for Bachmann if she were my Representative, but that’s partly because she’s where she belongs—her talents and her persona are most useful in the House, where she serves an important role in keeping up the morale and passions of the TEA Party faithful. (She helped to organize an anti-Obamacare rally in the Capitol, which I attended, and she reminded me more of a charming Boy Scout den mother than a grave future executive.) It’s not at all obvious that she’s an appropriate choice for the presidency, though, and part of the reason I’ve become such an absolutist on the question of female presidents is precisely this rush to place any reasonably competent female politician somewhere on the presidential ticket. Soon it will be impossible to keep any ticket minority-free, which is an absurd position for an ostensibly free, majoritarian society to be in.

Look, I realize that in some times and places a female head of state (or head of government—in the U.S., the president is both) is just fine. But I would never consider it a good thing in itself, and in the current environment it would be impossible to separate Bachmann’s identity as president from her identity as a female President. Our politics as they exist today would demand that she be feminist, at least rhetorically, and that would only exacerbate the damage being done by feminism. Rank and file Republicans ooh and ahh at the prospect of a female executive because, whether they realize it or not, they’re desperate to associate themselves with power and right now, liberalism enjoys almost unopposed political power.

In another day and time, this would not be such a problem. I daresay that it would have been better to have a female president many years ago than it would be today—and perhaps it would be a fine thing one day, if the right candidate came along and if America already had come to its senses. But nowadays, the pressure on female politicians to adopt the language of feminism, to marshal the destructive forces of PC in order to avoid criticism, to cite themselves as evidence that conservatism is basically all right, because conservatism is now feminist, and in general to present themselves as warriors for the Cause, is too great. Quite apart from the merits—and on the merits, I think Bachmann is an absurd choice for president—I just think the timing is very bad, especially coming fresh off of what Republican ditto-heads have gratingly referred to as “the Year of the Conservative Woman.”

Jim C. writes:

Paul Ryan is a superstar—he’d whip our Barry. So would Christie.

LA replies:

Yes, but Ryan is a 40 year old congressman and is not about to run for president. Christie is also not running for president.

Also, don’t overdo “superstar.” What’s wrong with “star”?

The ubiquitous use of the hype-word “superstar” has virtually eliminated the perfectly good word “star.”

Jim C. writes:

You got me there—yes, Ryan may not want to run, but if he were approached in the correct manner by top Republicans, I think he’d show he’s a team player. And he’d cream Barry on the health issue. He’s perfect.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 24, 2011 11:31 AM | Send