"Newt Gingrich can now call himself a former presidential candidate. As expected, the former House speaker has bowed out of the Republican presidential contest just short of a year after he got into the race." (05/02/12)
http://bit.ly/KPrHp8"Newt Gingrich began taking steps Wednesday to shut down his debt-laden presidential bid, setting the stage to endorse one-time rival Mitt Romney next week and rally the GOP behind its apparent nominee. Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said the former House speaker spoke with Romney on Wednesday and had started planning an event where he would throw his support behind the likely nominee." (04/25/12)
http://bit.ly/JGiGg6"Rick Santorum’s campaign netted a victory Saturday night in Louisiana, where he won that state’s GOP primary by a significant margin. The win sparks hope of a campaign rebound, following Santorum’s lopsided losses to Mitt Romney in the Illinois and Puerto Rico primaries. The former Massachusetts governor finished second and Newt Gingrich third in Saturday's contest." (03/24/12)
http://on.msnbc.com/H7cQDe"Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum swept the nominating contests in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado Tuesday night, putting him back in contention for the GOP nomination. Santorum now has four victories under his belt in the GOP race, more than any other candidate. His new standing stalls Mitt Romney's earlier momentum and gives Santorum grounds to argue that he -- not Newt Gingrich -- is the best conservative alternative to Romney." (02/08/12)
http://bit.ly/xR7P7T"Mitt Romney has won the Republican primary in Florida .... Returns from nearly half of Florida's precincts showed Mr Romney with 47 per cent of the vote, to Mr Gingrich's 31 per cent. ... Two other candidates, former senator Rick Santorum and congressman Ron Paul, remain in the race, but they conceded Florida to their rivals and remain longshots for the nomination. Mr Santorum had 13 per cent and Mr Paul 7 per cent." (02/01/12)
http://bit.ly/z6GpL1
Authority! "Newt Gingrich is often described as the smartest most intelligent man in the room as compared to his rival running mates on the debate stage, however, if this is so, it’s a mystery to me how he can come up with some of the dumbest must unintelligent ideas I’ve ever heard." (01/28/12)
http://bit.ly/y3FaEp
Cato Institute "Gingrich has an enviable rep as a one-man think tank, but in his wilderness years, he made a sweet living as a 'forceful' pitchman for utterly conventional center-left policies: Medicaid expansion, the individual mandate, cap and trade, 'clean energy' subsidies, and the like. Newt does a great impression of a red-state firebrand, but when it comes to policy, 'the color is blue.'" (01/24/12)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=14039
The American Conservative "Goldwater was the principled guy who couldn’t win but built a movement. Newt is the unprincipled guy who can’t win and might just smash that same movement." (01/23/12)
http://bit.ly/x2KAvm"Facing a restive Republican Party and a resurgent Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney shifted course on Sunday and agreed to release his tax returns this week, as the two candidates and their allies buckled in for a combative and unpredictable new phase of the presidential nominating campaign. ... As the campaigns made their way to Florida on Sunday, they were looking at a reset landscape where Mr. Gingrich has momentum but Mr. Romney has important financial and organizational advantages." (01/22/12)
http://nyti.ms/Ao1IP0"South Carolina may put an end to Mitt Romney's claim to inevitability. Indeed, if the polls that show Newt 'Open Marriage' Gingrich surging into a competitive -- perhaps even a top -- position in the Palmetto state primary are right, the premise that Republicans favor anyone-but-Romney will be well established. But Romney was never as inevitable as he seemed for a few weeks there." (01/19/12)
http://tinyurl.com/83vmjwy
KN@PPSTER "Why do I keep pointing to Gingrich as the obvious GOP nominee? It's certainly not because I prefer him or support him. Even if I voted, and even if I voted Republican, I wouldn't vote for Newt. But, here's the thing: This is a street fight, and Gingrich is a street fightin' man." (01/19/12)
http://tinyurl.com/74ghtoj"It if seemed as though Newt Gingrich -- veteran of pitched partisan battles, and no-holds-barred ideological cage matches -- had been off his game of late, he came roaring back during the GOP debate in South Carolina. ... He confirmed, yet again, the worst of many Americans' suspicions about conservatives and about the GOP. And all he had to do was play the proverbial race card." (01/18/12)
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012010318/newts-race-card"Newt, I like you, but you have let your thirst for power overwhelm what you know to be right. It is time to exit stage right." (01/17/12)
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/newt-336022-obama-bain.html
Freedom's Phoenix "I hold out some hope Rick Perry can make some sort of a comeback but must face the fact he may not. If Perry bows out, I will put my support behind my second choice for President: Newt Gingrich. At first I had written Newt off due to the bad taste in my mouth over the collapse of the 1994 Republican Revolution which I blamed him for. I also thought he had way too much baggage that would easily lead to an early demise. Fortunately, my initial assertions were inaccurate and it's turning out Newt might be the best choice among the Republican candidates." (01/15/12)
http://bit.ly/zUcXfx KN@PPSTER "The RealClearPolitics polling averages for the last 10 days show Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in tight -- within 1.1% of each other and closing in around 20% each -- and Paul gaining (with Rick Santorum surging up toward them). That can only be bad news for Romney." (01/02/12)
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2012/01/iowa-caucus-predictions.html Cato Institute "Gingrich doesn't stop with ignoring court rulings he believes to be mistaken. As president, he says, he would also urge Congress to strip the courts of jurisdiction, call errant judges on the congressional carpet, impeach them, and even abolish whole circuits -- all of which is breathtakingly un-American and also uninformed, but it resonated with many in the audience at the last Republican debate." (12/29/11)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13961 KN@PPSTER "Between 1884 and 1891, the states each adopted the 'Australian' ballot -- a standardized form printed by the government. The ostensible purpose for this change was confidentiality, but the real effect was to finally and permanently cement the power of the Republican and Democratic parties -- for with government printing of ballots came 'ballot access' requirements." (12/24/11)
http://bit.ly/v2abA8 Authority! "Newt Gingrich is concerned only with dishing out red meat to his religious ultra-right-wing social conservative base in an effort to secure an Iowa caucuses victory and ultimately the Republican Party nomination so he can lose the 2012 general election to Barack Obama." (12/20/11)
http://bit.ly/rM0rTH
Nolan Chart "Think creatively and you will see how electing Gingrich president could accomplish the impossible: motivate Americans to rebel and overthrow the two-party plutocracy." (12/19/11)
http://www.nolanchart.com/article9183-dont-mute-newt.html Cato Institute "If the tea party stood for anything when it upset conventional politics a year ago, it was to revive debate about restoring limited constitutional government. Newt Gingrich seems to be tapping into that effort, but the tea party folks better look more closely before they buy what Newt is selling." (12/14/11)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13934"The 'New Newt' surging in the Republican polls overlaps so significantly with the former version that the 'Old Newt' should be suing for copyright infringement." (12/13/11)
http://bit.ly/vnl756
Reason "If you're looking for a profligate authoritarian, Gingrich is your man." (12/14/11)
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/14/not-newt
The American Conservative "Michael Gerson, the evangelical Christian and The Washington Post’s Republican faith & politics columnist, came out swinging Tuesday in an unusual fusillade calling into question Newt’s intellectualism, religious tolerance and judgement. If one didn’t know Gerson to be a former top official in the Bush White House, scribe of the infamous 'axis of evil' reference in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union speech, reflexively dismissive of foreign policy 'realism,' and promoter of regime change in Iran, you would think he was writing, at least on Tuesday, for the Democrats. Or Ron Paul. But he wasn’t." (12/14/11)
http://bit.ly/ulKaPd
Lobbyist or consultant
by Timothy J Taylor
"A 'lobbyist' is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest. A 'consultant' is a person who gives professional or expert advice. In this case, Newt Gingrich was in reality a consultant employed to give professional expert advice to Freddie Mac lobbyists in regard to how best to influence legislation on Capitol Hill on behalf and in favor of Freddie Mac. Lobbyist or consultant -- here it was manifestly a distinction without a difference." (01/31/12)
http://bit.ly/AlJfDoNo Comments »