Redstate

I think Republican consultants are mostly very stupid. I think they have no education. I think they have no sense of history.

Good thing he won't need any to work in his campaign.

Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.

What was so cheap and nasty about the campaign against Kerry and why wouldn't it work against Hillary given that she has enough skeletons in her closet to fill up the Kerry/Heinz mansion?

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Kevin Holtsberry
Managing Editor
www.StopHerNow.com

And I don't think anyone is going to board his cruise ship on Oct 21 for an endless seminar.

I'll say one thing for the Clintons- they sure made mincemeat out of him the last time.

haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).

We are all waiting with bated breath while you consider your potential campaign and blast all the other incompetents. Really, such duplicitous speech makes one appear small, petty and uninformed.

Perhaps a good reading of posts on this board may provide a new dimension to your education. Not many here are saying "SWIFT Boat" tactics will win this election. In point of fact, this is primarily positioned as a matter of issues, ideas and vision. It is also about exposing the substantial differences between Republican and Democrat ideals and principals; something you are really good at. My free advice, stick to that line of work.

Perhaps the last election proves there was a fair degree of incompetence in our electoral strategy. However, I am not here to defend the clowns who helped contribute to that defeat. But if you believe folks here will follow those lemmings again, you are sadly mistaken, Sir.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report

and he doesn't have to insult GOP consultants.

Let me be clear. I think Republican consultants are mostly very stupid. I think they have no education. I think they have no sense of history.

Also, Fred THompson and Al Gore have both run much better non-campaign campaigns than Newt has.

Freedom Fighter in Occupied VA

until he puts on what appears to be his favorite hat.
It is the hat with the "sanctimonious" label.
Hillary is a strong candidatein the sense a piec of glass is strong - glass is strong but brittle. Hillary, with her pathological inability to deal with tough questions, does not have the strength to win. she demonstrated this last night, and she has demonstrated it many times in the past.
Gingrich is the greates idea guy on the Conservative side of American political thinking. But he has an absolutely tin ear when it comes to actually running anything or projecting those ideas in an adversarial enviroinment.

Granted, I don't think President Bush ran a "great" campaign in '04 (but any campaign with Dick Cheney on the ticket can't be good, much less great) but it sure as hell worked! On the flip-side, the Clintons played Newt like a drum when he was Speaker.
Perhaps Newt's strategy is to win over the MSM by joining the pro-Hillary and anti-Republican candidate chorus? Then, hope they consider him one of their own when he jumps in the race. Don't be so stupid Newt, you are useful ONLY to the extent you sing along with the pro-Hillary tune, and your usefulness to the MSM only extends that far.

Never forget, David Souter was nominated by President George H.W. Bush

I am surprised and irritated that Newt called it a cheap and nasty campaign against Kerry. Weren't the swift boat guys 1st hand witnesses telling their story? Kerry in fact was traitorous and pissed on our country IMHO.

Newt is trying to use fear( a good thing) to motivate people against Shrillary and trying to create separation between him and the current administration. He cites the example of Sarkozy creating separation in France often. He has to watch his condescending tendancy to avoid pissing off conservatives and Republicans even though we do need tremendous change and a wakeup call. It can easily turn into shoot the messenger. What is simple and obvious to him may not be to many people.

I think he is better off announcing and trying to run rather than pull the Ross Perot "if you want me, i'll run" approach. He put a high expectation of raising $30mil in pledges probably to give him an easier out come October.

Despite all Newt's negatives that people focus on, he is a freakin' idea generating giant with superior communication skills that could lead the biggest positive transformation our government has ever seen. He needs to be involved in a big, big way, whether it is out front or behind the scenes. No other candidate even comes close, or is hinting at using our best and brightest ideas to transform government.

He is right that real change comes from the people and not our elected elite in Washington. My gut feeling says I'm not sure it is "bad enough" for the silent majority to rise up and take the reigns back for awhile. I think we would be after 4 years of Shrillary. (not that I want that!).

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite

One point we are missing that is important as well. Newt has alot of informal one on one and off the cuff sound bytes/video clips that are published.

What if we applied the same standard to all candidates. How much more damning material would there be?

Most other candidates are much more carefully scripted which don't necessarily reveal their true intentions.

So we must compare apples to apples.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite

Smart? Yes. Stupid? Like a freight train. He totally screwed up the Speaker gig. He cheap shots Bush at every opportunity. He is a self righteous, sanctimonius, self-centered political hack who will probably garner support from about the same percentage of Republicans as Ron Paul all of whom will be just as out of touch with reality only in a far less amusing way. In short, Newt, bug off, you had your chance to show us what you could do, we were not impressed.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

I really take insult to Newt's assertion that Bush ran a "cheap and nasty" campaign against Kerry. I actually thought the Swift Boat vets claims were fair game, especially since Kerry made his Vietnam service a cornerstone of his campaign.

Kerry came back from Vietnam in 3 months with 3 Purple Hearts and only a bandaid to show for it. You don't have to be a partisan hack to question whether or not that passes the smell test.

It's clear that Newt will say anything to get attention, and he is increasingly becoming an Alan Keyes-like figure in our Party. Conservatives give him more respect than he deserves.

"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. "

William F. Buckley, Jr.

I gotta say, my opinion on Gingrich is considerably less than it was a few months ago. What is the point of these little diatribes against the several Republican candidates if not to aggrandize his own ego?

Newt is a guy with a lot of ideas, some of them great, others not. As a commentator he has much to offer. As a leader and a candidate, less and less.

Everyone but me is a dwarf? People that don't agree with me are "stupid"? Raise me 30 million and we'll talk? These are signs of an ego out of control.

He is wrong about everything else.

As others have said, the 2004 campaign was not a "cheap and nasty" victory. In fact, as a historian, Newt should know that plenty of presidential campaigns have been decided over less important matters than the 2004. 1984 was decided over the state of the economy - it was good. 1996 was decided by the same. In fact, the war on terror is actually an important matter, and that was what the 2004 election was about. Further, virtually every single presidential election is nasty. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Lincoln were all brutalized. More recently, 1992 was a brutally nasty race run by the Clintons against Papa Bush. The problem is, as Newt suggests, no body seems to remember history - even Newt!

Newt is right that Hillary is a good candidate, if by that he means that she will make no major mistakes, she will raise a lot of money, and she will always be well-spoken. However, he seems to be ignoring her really major problem. A lot of people simply don't like her. Even her voice is grating, and when she trys to inspire, she sounds very shrill. This is not what voters look for in a candidate for President, especially in troubled times.

To back up her high negatives in the polls, I can say that, anecdotally, I have two solid Democratic relatives who have expressed great disgust at the idea casting the lever for Hillary. While I suspect that they might be worn down by a nasty campaign against the Republican candidate - we all know this is coming, people, so be ready - it doesn't help her cause that core voters on the Democratic side are so hostile towards her now. And, also anecdotally, I know several swing voters who have expressed similar visceral anti-Hillary sentiments. (One said, quite interestingly, I am part of the "no more Bushes, no more Clintons" voting bloc.)

I suspect that, like others have said, Newt is hoping to somehow build Clinton up, so that she wins, and so that he can run in 2012. He knows, as we all do, that there is simply no room for him in the 2008 election.

Hillary makes plenty of mistakes. Had other candidates said things she has said they would have been skewered in the media. She just gets more political cover than the other candidates.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite

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