Newt Gingrich Vice-President trial balloon?

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.

It looks like someone in the Trump "organization" leaked—or maybe threw up a trial balloon—that Newt Gingrich is on the short list for Donald Trump's VPOTUS slot.  Of course the leak may well have come from that self-aggrandizing blow hard, The Newt himself. Holy S***!

I knew they were looking for a congressional insider; a Speaker [1] fits the bill.  This race just keeps getting stranger and juicier.  I just saw a clip on Fox where Gingrich [2] said he'd be glad to take the job... with a few (unstated) conditions.

               

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[1]  Even a disgraced Speaker of the House who was ridden out of town on a rail

[2]  Illustration of Newt is by me, from an All This Is That post during the 2012 primaries)

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In the face of mounting calls for his withdrawal, Speaker Gingrich vows to stay the course

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
illustration by Jack Brummet

"We are staying in this race because I believe it's going to be impossible for a moderate to win." 

Following his shellacking in Alabama and Mississippi yesterday, Speaker Gingrich held a rally today in a Chicago suburb. 75 people showed up.

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The Twilight of Newt Gingrich

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Newt is spending today in Ohio, whistling past the graveyard

After three contests today where he achieved total irrelevancy, Newt has been spending his time in Ohio, in hopes of salvaging his candidacy. 

But. . .not only Newt is on the ropes.  Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Rick Santorum swept all three contests today...just after Ex-Governor Romney scored back-to-back wins in Florida and Nevada.  Those two victories led most pundits to predict that Romney was on a straight march to the nomination.  Wednesday will be an interesting day.  Maybe not everything has changed, but much has changed.

As for Newt himself,  he'll hang in for a while, and go through the motions in Washington State, Arizona, Maine, Michigan before Super Tuesday on March 6th.  In fact he claims--but, then, don't they all?--that he is staying in throughout the primary-caucus season, all the way to the convention.  But sometime between tomorrow and that convention, he will drop out, get to give a dramatic speech at the convention, and then become become a revived, if not beloved, senior statesman, and go to work for a think tank or as a sort-of-but-not-really-lobbyist.

The end of the road?  Or on the trail to Comeback Number Three?

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Newt's South Carolina win::::::::::The Republican ship is taking on water

By Jack Brummet, Paranormal, Art, Poetry, and Persiflage Editor (filling in for National Affairs Editor Pablo Fanque, on vacation in Belize)

I very much enjoyed Ex-Speaker Newt's win in South Carolina.  Why?  Because it was nice to see a cannonball blown through Mittens's aura of inevitability.  It's also nice to see the GOP in disarray/upheaval.  We have a different winner in each of the contests so far.  I don't know what the real pundits are saying, but I think this also bodes well for Ron Paul. 

The Mittens juggernaut has been slowed down--the ox is mired in the mud.  Do I want to see Newt as President?  No.  But as for the GOP itself, I enjoy the confusion and chaos.  Neither the establishment/money elite, or the Tea Party faction, or the fundamentalist wing seem able to right the Republican ship...and they're taking on water, fast. 

Why do I enjoy this SO much?  As Alfred Pennyworth said in another context "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

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Newt nails down the coveted Todd Palin endorsement

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich has secured the coveted endorsement of Todd Palin.  The Ex-Governor's husband told ABC news today that the Gingrich campaign has “burst out of the political arena and touched many Americans.”

Todd Palin, known as the "First Dude" during his wife's term of office, didn't have anything negative to say about the other Republican Presidential candidates, but that his "hat is off to everyone” in the race.

Palin's wife Sarah has yet to endorse any of the candidates for President.

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While Ex-Speaker Gingrch claims the Palestinians don't exist, this photograph proves otherwise

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

While Ex-Speaker Newt Gingrch claims that the Palestinians don't exist, this photograph of the Speaker and Yasser Arafat holding hands proves otherwise.  Some people (most notably Wonkette) have recently hinted that The Speaker in all likelihood had a man-crush on the PLO Chairman.

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Quote of the day: David Axelrod likens Ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich to a monkey's butt

"I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, ‘just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.’ So, you know, the Speaker is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view." - David Axelrod, Obama Campaign Senior Strategist

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Serial Adulterer Newt Gingrich "Endorses" The Iowa Marriage Pledge

By Mona Goldwater, Ethics Editor

From today's @NewYorkTimes:  "Newt Gingrich became the latest Republican candidate to endorse the so-called marriage pledge, a controversial document put forward by an influential evangelical group in Iowa that opposes same-sex marriage and abortion."

"Mr. Gingrich stopped short of signing the pledge, however."

The Iowa pledge, put together by the Family Leader, asks candidates to try to block same-sex marriage and women “in forward combat roles.” It also requires pledgees to remain faithful to their spouses and support “robust childbearing and reproduction.”

Newt didn't actually sign; he just "endorsed" it.   Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum all did sign the pledge.  Newt, of course, is the only one in the field who has publicly admitted to cheating on two of his wives (so far). 

The pledge's relevant section follows.  If Newt is really reformed, as he claims, it looks like he can endorse the Pledge with a (more or less) clear conscience:

"9 — As applicable if married now, wed in the future, or whenever interacting with another's spouse, a person of the opposite sex or of personal attraction. No signer herein claims to be without past wrongdoing, including that of adultery. Yet going forward, each hereby vows fidelity to his or her marital vows, to his or her spouse, to all strictures and commandments against adultery, and to resist the lure of pornography destructive to marital intimacy."

Mr. Gingrich is off the hook with the pledge for his past sins. 

The most interesting part of the pledge is where they get into economics.  WTF?  How is this in the Marriage Pledge?:

"Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA‟s $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget." Again, this is in "The Marriage Vow."

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Can Newt Gingrich Run For President, And Dodge Questions About The Sewer Of His Personal Life?

By Pablo Fanque
National Affairs Editor

The idea that Newt Gingrich might actually run, and somehow dupe the Republicans into supporting him in the first place (his numbers are sucking wind), seems patently absurd if you take even a passing glance at the sewer of his personal life.   Republicans seem unlikely to give the nod to someone on their third marriage, especially when Wife No. 2 is talking to the press about what a P.O.S. he is, was, and always will be.
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Ex-Governor Palin riding low in the water & high in the polls

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
& Jack Brummet, Social Mores & Ethics Editor

Holy S***t!    People laughed when Jack wrote a year and a half ago that Sarah Palin had a serious shot at succeeding President Barack Obama--after one term.  Pablo laughed, and didn't take his jabbering as half-serious...it was just Jack being contrarian Jack.   But then, a few months later, the Teabag movement began gathering momentum, Sarah Palin had sold millions of books, and piled away millions of dollars. She was making highly paid speeches.  She's been racing around the country and beating the drum for teabagger-approved candidates. 

This recent Gallup Poll raised the collective hairs on our necks. 

We haven't seen any recent Palin-Obama head to head polls, but this is feeling more than a little spooky.  The juggernaut we all thought would blow itself out by now is still picking up steam.  Even Levi is back on the bus.
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Clown Wars: Pablo Fanque reports on the factionalism, disarray, depression, hopelessness, and continuing losing prospects of The Republican Party

Click the Governor to enlarge

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

[Pablo Fanque's work appears in numerous journals, blogs, books, and at times, on the sides of buses and even scrawled in bathroom stalls and phone booths. After working as a community organizer for two years in southeast King County, near Seattle, he began his college education. After his expulsion from Harvard University in 1977, Fanque continued (and even completed) college while working in the publishing business, in San Francisco, New York City, and in the Pacific Northwest. Pablo's artistic output includes hundreds of paintings and drawings, including his monumental "Heads," consisting of 150 canvases, each with 16 or 96 portraits. He has completed, and is now revising his next book, "The King Begins To Falter." Fanque met Jack Brummet in 2004 at a rock show in Austin, Texas, and they have been friends, and collaborators, ever since.]

How can we analyze or understand the dissension, disarray, division, and decimation visited upon the Republican Party in the last year or two? When Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich emerge as the charming and likable voices of moderation and reason, you know the party has come off the rails. A simple enumeration of the [unelected] voices of the party tells the sad story:

Sean Hannity
Michael Steele (who surely will be shuffled out the door sooner rather than later)
Jon Voight
Rush "Oxy" Limbaugh
Liz Cheney

There are even a few elected Republican voices:

Sarah Palin
Haley Barbour (he's been visiting New Hampshire and Iowa already)
John Boehner
Tim Pawlenty
Mitch McConnell
Bobby Jindal (but let's face it, his pathetic performance in his state of the union rebuttal pushed him back into the wings)
John McCain

And then there are one-time elected Republicans, some of who hope to leap back into the fray, or even make the leap into The Oval Office:

Mitt Romney
Newt Gingrich
Dick Cheney
Mike Huckabee (who feels like the front runner, along with Gingrich, and Governor Palin).
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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared at a Republican congressional fundraiser Monday night, ending a long and drawn out will-she-or-won't-she mystery that, in the end, probably overshadowed the event and left the GOP even more frustrated and in greater disarray than before.

Palin -- the party's disastrous 2008 VP nominee--was originally scheduled to headline the annual Senate-House dinner. She was shunted aside in favor of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. After that, Governor Palin left the organizers hanging in the wind...even as late as Monday afternoon. [This is not the first time Palin has thrown a public tantrum over not being allowed to speak. Remember Election Night? Palin expected to give a speech, but soon learned that no losing VP candidate gives a speech on election night, particularly when they violated the VP Hippocratic oath--Do No Harm.] Let's face it. . .the GOP slapped a muzzle on the pitbull with lipstick. Last week, when it started to look like a real event, Palin's advisers told the RNCC she would be near Washington and would like to come. Uh-oh.

Republican officials involved in the discussions (who spoke on condition of anonymity--natch, because of the sensitivity of the matter), said Palin was invited to sit at a head table but would not be given the chance to speak. The GOP was worried that she might swamp, or out-maverick, Newt Gingrich. Granted, Newt isn't exactly a dynamo on the rostrum, but if you're sweating Governor Palin overshadowing you at a Republican dinner, well, friendo, your Presidential dreams are ashes.

Palin didn't like this turn of affairs one bit, and did not make clear whether she would refuse to attend, officials say. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, made a personal appeal over the weekend for her to attend and invited her and her husband, Todd Palin, to sit at the big boys' table.

Late Monday afternoon, Palin's aides informed the organizers that she and her husband would attend, although a spokeswoman for the governor's political committee would not confirm that.

Palin has her eyes on the White House in 2012. In March, the National Republican Congressional Committee, put out a news release saying that Palin would be the keynote speaker at the dinner--one of the party's largest fundraisers. Palin's representatives then weaseled, saying the governor wanted to make sure the event did not interfere with state business. Right.

It can't have helped Palin's cause that she is being accused of plagiarizing Dick Cheney's speeches (or that she is embroiled in a very public pissing match with David Letterman.) I don't know about that one. I've just always kind of assumed, when there is any content in her speeches and edicts, it was lifted from elsewhere. She is accused of snagging a substantial portion of a speech from Newt Gingrich--the man she will eventually run against in the primaries.
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Gingrich: 80/20 The Dems will win

According to an interview Newt Gingrich had with the National Journal, the Republican's goose is cooked. Read the full article in the National Journal here.

Q: You said fairly recently that the Democrats had a very high likelihood of winning the presidency next year.

Gingrich: I think that the country, after the last couple of years, has a bias in favor of change -- I think probably starting with [Hurricane] Katrina and coming through Baghdad and the whole sense of too much spending. And you sense a lack of enthusiasm in the conservative base, and you sense a stunning level of intensity in the anti-war Left. And so you just look at the dynamics and you have to say the odds are probably 80-20 [in the Democrats' favor].
Q: 80-20?

Gingrich: Yeah. That's my guess. Now, it could change. If you had a [Republican] candidate who could break out and who could say, "Obviously, we need to change pretty dramatically, and the party of trial lawyers, public employee unions, [and] left-wing ideologues probably can't change,"


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Newt calls the G.O.P. Presidential slate a "bunch of pygmies"

Newt Gingrich yesterday called the GOP presidential field a "pathetic bunch of "pygmies," and said he may very well step in to take on Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"If, in mid-October, it's quite clear that one or more of the current candidates is strong enough to be a serious alternative to a Clinton-Obama ticket, you don't need me to run," the former House Speaker said at a breakfast sponsored by the American Spectator. "If it becomes patently obvious, as the morning paper points out, that the Democrats have raised a hundred million more than the Republicans, and at some point people decide we are going to get Hillary unless there's a radical change, then there's space for a candidate," he added. "So you'll know by mid-October one of those two futures is real."

Gingrich mocked Republican presidential candidates for subjecting themselves to a May debate hosted by Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball. Newt didn't much cotton to "The idea of 10 or 11 people standing passively at microphones," where you "shrink to the level of 40-second answers, standing like a trained seal, waiting for someone to throw me a fish."