A third look at Gingrich

[Jackson]

The failure to get on the Virginia ballot was appalling. He didn't try to get on the Missouri ballot. These are elementary strategies for a candidate to accomplish of they are going to be a viable candidate.

This is a brilliant man with a great resume and thinks outside the box for solutions. But for a while now, we find that some Republicans cannot get behind him for vague reasons and quite honestly, his mouth sometimes shoots himself in the foot. Equating Pearl Harbor with the fact he didn't get on the ballot in Virginia was a bonehead statement from one expected to be leader of our country.

Early on, there was friction with his organizing campaign and they all quit. So, that was campaign stuff, I thought. But now, I think if the man cannot work closely with those around him, can he effectively be president? It's too bad. He's obviously the brightest of the candidates and can debate rings around anyone else. But is that enough?

 

[Big Black Dog]

I like President-elect Newt.

 

[Zoom]

I think we should all just forget about Ol Newt's past and make him the nominee.

 

[eots]

The man is a complete swine...what is wrong with you people

 

[Oddball]

My second look at him back in '95 was enough.

He's a fascist dickweed, who couldn't even garner the support of his own party's caucus in congress, inside of 24 months of his ascent to the Speaker's role.

He makes Romney look like Goldwater in comparison.

 

[Paulie]

The guy wrote the foreword for a book detailing how the US is shifting into something called the 3rd wave of politics, where the constitution and and sovereign nations are obsolete.

That's not scary at all

 

[Jackson]

I like President-elect Newt.

I did - do too. But my question is... will he listen to ideas of others? We have a president who refused to go with any agenda other than his own and look where it got us.iven. He can win against Obama in any debate. That is a given. Is he the leader that will not shoot off his mouth without thinking? If another idea comes in contrary to his own, will he give it the credence it deserves while considering it?

What did you think of Gingrich's criticism of Paul Ryan's budget plan? One comment he had to apologize for?

 

[Avorysuds]

Why would Newt have to work with anyone if President, he would just toss em in jail or some other fucked up bullshit and demand he gets his way...

Newt is so smart that he accidently says some of the stupid shit I have ever heard.

As another posters said, Newt wants to re-write the constitution… Annnnnd does he give details about how he think the constitution would look after he re-writes it lol? Maybe if Newt is President we'll be lucky and find out then!

 

[Mad Scientist]

This is a brilliant man with a great resume and thinks outside the box for solutions.

I'm so fuckin' sick of that cliche'.

 

[Mad Scientist]

As another posters said, Newt wants to re-write the constitution… Annnnnd does he give details about how he think the constitution would look after he re-writes it lol? Maybe if Newt is President we'll be lucky and find out then!

We have to pass the Legislation to find out what's in it. Sound familiar?

 

[Toro]

He's too unstable.

 

[Sallow]

He's too unstable.

Ya think?

He's to busy doing his book tour to be bothered by frivolous things like getting signatures..so he can get on the ballot. Maybe he's hoping for another Scalia miracle.

Sheesh..what's all the hub bub about?

 

[JoeB131]

The failure to get on the Virginia ballot was appalling. He didn't try to get on the Missouri ballot. These are elementary strategies for a candidate to accomplish of they are going to be a viable candidate.

This is a brilliant man with a great resume and thinks outside the box for solutions. But for a while now, we find that some Republicans cannot get behind him for vague reasons and quite honestly, his mouth sometimes shoots himself in the foot. Equating Pearl Harbor with the fact he didn't get on the ballot in Virginia was a bonehead statement from one expected to be leader of our country.

Early on, there was friction with his organizing campaign and they all quit. So, that was campaign stuff, I thought. But now, I think if the man cannot work closely with those around him, can he effectively be president? It's too bad. He's obviously the brightest of the candidates and can debate rings around anyone else. But is that enough?

oooohhhh, Goody. Another thread on this tired-ass subject.

Newt didn't get on because of Establishment dirty tricks.

Romney has all the ethics of Nixon.

 

[Sallow]

The failure to get on the Virginia ballot was appalling. He didn't try to get on the Missouri ballot. These are elementary strategies for a candidate to accomplish of they are going to be a viable candidate.

This is a brilliant man with a great resume and thinks outside the box for solutions. But for a while now, we find that some Republicans cannot get behind him for vague reasons and quite honestly, his mouth sometimes shoots himself in the foot. Equating Pearl Harbor with the fact he didn't get on the ballot in Virginia was a bonehead statement from one expected to be leader of our country.

Early on, there was friction with his organizing campaign and they all quit. So, that was campaign stuff, I thought. But now, I think if the man cannot work closely with those around him, can he effectively be president? It's too bad. He's obviously the brightest of the candidates and can debate rings around anyone else. But is that enough?

oooohhhh, Goody. Another thread on this tired-ass subject.

Newt didn't get on because of Establishment dirty tricks.

Romney has all the ethics of Nixon.

And Newt doesn't?

 

[kwc57]

He's too unstable.

Ya think?

He's to busy doing his book tour to be bothered by frivolous things like getting signatures..so he can get on the ballot. Maybe he's hoping for another Scalia miracle.

Sheesh..what's all the hub bub about?

Yeah, but you support Obama, so your own judgment is already pretty suspect.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

This is a brilliant man with a great resume and thinks outside the box for solutions.

He ‘thinks’ outside the Constitution, as well. And I’ve yet to see any evidence of this ‘brilliance.’

He's obviously the brightest of the candidates and can debate rings around anyone else. But is that enough?

Again, with no evidence of the above, it’s impossible to determine if it’s ‘enough.’

Gingrich isn’t qualified to be president for the same reason no other republican is: he’s simply wrong on the major issues. This in conjunction to this overt hostility to the judiciary and statements exhibiting his ignorance of the Constitution – such as the Founding Document doesn’t mention the Supreme Court – render Gingrich unfit to be CE.

 

[kwc57]

This is a brilliant man with a great resume and thinks outside the box for solutions.

He ‘thinks’ outside the Constitution, as well. And I’ve yet to see any evidence of this ‘brilliance.’

He's obviously the brightest of the candidates and can debate rings around anyone else. But is that enough?

Again, with no evidence of the above, it’s impossible to determine if it’s ‘enough.’

Gingrich isn’t qualified to be president for the same reason no other republican is: he’s simply wrong on the major issues. This in conjunction to this overt hostility to the judiciary and statements exhibiting his ignorance of the Constitution – such as the Founding Document doesn’t mention the Supreme Court – render Gingrich unfit to be CE.

In short, he's the Republican Obama.

 

[skipper]

With his temperament, he's liable to start a major conflict if a world leader suggest using the rear exit.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Why do we need a 3rd look has the political winds changed again?

 

[bitterlyclingin]

(Smells like some of Obama's Chicago Style politics here, in a Virginia Republican primary.)

"One small problem with that: as Winger argues, the rules were allegedly drastically changed. In November of this year.

Winger’s article is too long to reproduce here, so I’ll summarize it: prior to the 2012 elections it was Republican party policy in Virginia to simply deem any candidate that brought in ten thousand raw signatures as having met the primary ballot requirements under Virginian state election law. So, for example, Alan Keyes (a popular negative example for people making the ‘any competent campaign’ argument) apparently did not actually have his petitions checked in 2000 and 2008; absent going back and looking at the paperwork (assuming that it even still exists), there’s no way to tell whether he would have survived the scrutiny of 2012. And that’s true of every other candidate who has appeared on the primary ballot in Virginia. None of them qualify for an apples-to-apples comparison – and this remains true no matter how many signatures were collected. If you know that your signatures will not be checked if you get above 10K, you are simply operating in a fundamentally different environment than one where you know that your signatures will be checked.

As for the implications… well, I think that John Fund’s general comment is correct: this is going to go to the courts. John was not discussing this specific wrinkle, but his larger point that Virginia’s ballot access policies have systemic problems gets a big boost when it turns out that the state party can effectively increase by fifty percent the practical threshold for ballot access – in a day, and in the middle of an existing campaign. The VA GOP still retains ultimate control over who gets on the ballot, of course. But then, they always have – and under the current system they could in fact brazen it out and certify Gingrich and Perry anyway. Of course, that would probably mean another lawsuit anyway; but then, there really isn’t a path out of here that doesn’t involve lawsuits.

But that’s a matter for the courts and the party leadership. On the activist level; as noted above, there has been a certain argument used to defend the VA GOP. It’s an argument that accuses two Presidential campaigns of being ignorant of conditions on the ground… and it turns out that the people using that argument may themselves be guilty of being ignorant of conditions on the ground. If it is true that the Republican party of Virginia decided in November of 2011 to increase the threshold for automatic certification from 10K to 15K, then it is reasonable to suggest that this was a change that unfairly rewarded candidates who had previously run for President in Virginia. Even if you dispute that, if this story checks out then it is still completely unreasonable to compare the Gingrich/Perry campaigns to any historical Presidential campaign in Virginia: if this was 2008 or 2000, they’d both be on the ballot themselves and the subject wouldn’t have even come up."


Did the VA GOP change the rules on primary ballot access in November 2011? | RedState