GOP presidential campaign notes (12/19/2011)
I did not write, after last Wednesday night, what has otherwise become my habitual post-mortem of Republican debates. There could have been plenty to say, I suppose—and certainly others found plenty to say—but in my case it seemed like a place-holding debate. It didn’t change my own mind on anything, and I’m not sure it really made a significant difference to the horse race in and of itself, although the horse race has certainly been in flux overall.
I’m personally right where I was before that debate. There are two candidates I find worthy of support, on the substance: Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich. I am not yet ready to decide for which one I would cast my vote, given the necessity of choosing. I expect to make up my mind, for the sake of good form if nothing else, immediately before the Iowa caucuses begin.
I have settled on Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich because they seem to me to be the candidates with the best records of actually getting good things done in office. I believe that both would shake up Washington, in a generally conservative direction, if elected president. Both have quite detailed and dramatic plans on the economy, regarding taxes and energy and entitlements and other matters. Both, of-course, are opposed and despised by the current Republican establishment in Washington. (Clearly, Romney is the favored “business-as-usual” candidate.)
At this point, when it comes to Rick Perry, his fate is in his hands. Given his low position in the national polls, he needs to do unexpectedly well in Iowa, I think, in order to boost his profile and momentum moving forward. If he does that, it won’t be because of debate performance, but because of his campaigning on the ground—something he is known be excellent at—and likely due to his advertising too. He has some very good ad people.
Gingrich is different. His campaign is essentially a national one. He has furthered his candidacy through the nationally-televised debates more than through any other means. His candidacy could certainly go on in spite of a poor showing in Iowa. But doing well is always better than doing badly. Romney will be looking to enhance what is already his greatest (and perhaps only) asset: his crushing sense of dull inevitability. For him, coming second in Iowa (perhaps behind Ron Paul)— especially considering his lack of personal campaigning there—would be a tremendous boon.
Newt Gingrich has been suffering an all-out assault from virtually every quarter, as has every previous candidate who threatened that sense of dull inevitability to which Mitt Romney and his supporters cling so closely. Simply put, while Gingrich is clearly not pure as the wind-blown white-stuff, I have not been persuaded by the attacks that he is not nonetheless rather good presidential material. Let’s look at some of the criticism from what has become—I think deservedly—a notorious editorial from National Review: Winnowing the Field. The editorial effectively endorses Mitt Romney without explicitly endorsing him, and is an epic example of weasely-ness. In warning the world against Newt, this is said: “During his time as Speaker, he was one of the most unpopular figures in public life.” He was Speaker from 1995 to 1998, an extraordinarily successful time for Republican ideas in American governance, despite having a Democratic president in office (Bill Clinton). As actually acknowledged in the editorial:
[Newt Gingrich] saw the potential for a Republican takeover of Congress and worked tirelessly to bring it about. Even before the takeover, Gingrich helped to solidify the party’s opposition to tax increases and helped to defeat the Clinton health-care plan. The victory of 1994 enabled the passage of welfare reform, the most successful social policy of recent decades.
So, how did he become what the editors of National Review describe as “one of the most unpopular figures in public life”? Well, believe it or not, I was well out of diapers during the mid-1990s, and I was attentive and aware of what was going on in national politics. I don’t recall, myself, ever developing a hatred for Newt Gingrich. Immediately that the Republicans he led won their majority in the House of Representatives, however, the national media (that is, the liberal media as opposed to National Review back then) decided on their narrative. Newsweek magazine deployed their famous cover in late 1994: “How the Gingrich Stole Christmas.” It didn’t let up after that. It only got more intense. These were the days, let’s not forget, of the Bill Clinton war-room-spin-machine at the White House, and Gingrich was Target One. As Speaker of the House, one is not well-positioned to compete with the president in a popularity contest. However, despite 24/7 demonization, Newt Gingrich as Speaker achieved a very substantial amount of what the Republicans he led had promised to achieve in their “Contract with America.” In terms of fiscal policy, it may well be the last time conservative positions were actually advanced successfully in Washington D.C.
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He left under an infidelity cloud, during the Clinton/Lewinsky era. He was not a flag-waver for impeachment, and obviously this was part of the reason. There were also “ethics charges” of a nature that I still can’t decipher, in terms of what the true wrongdoing may have been, versus stepping over arcane lines of “gotcha” politics. But, in any event, I wasn’t happy to see such an effective Republican leader go, at the time. Were the editors of National Review really so happy? What came next? Dennis Hastert? Those were great years, huh?
Newt Gingrich clearly pissed people off while he was Speaker, and not just liberals. There are Republicans, still in Congress, who resent that they were passed over for committee chairmanships and the like. He broke dishes. He rubbed people the wrong way. Grudges have been held. But in terms of achieving things—conservative things—for average Americans, he delivered.
So, all of this barrage against him is having its effect on the polls, but—while they’re going down—I’m not sure that his numbers are going to quite drop off the cliff like previous challengers to Mitt Romney. I tend to think he is going to remain a contender. He certainly remains a contender for the endorsement of THE CINCH REVIEW.
And the race goes on.
