Posted under Conservatism & Election 2012 & Lincoln & Political Philosophy
Newt Gingrich is running for President.
Reading or listening to Gingrich makes me physically ill. (I exaggerated only ever so slightly.) He is a verbose windbag who enjoys listening to himself talk and thinks his babbling is a substitute for actual thought.
Newt is not now, never has been and never will be a conservative. He is a free-market techno futurist who throws in occasional references to the Founders and God and American “Ideals” (based on the proposition nation myth) when it suits him. He used to avoid much mention of God even but has thrown in more references to God lately since he is trying to get back in the good graces of values voters whose favor he fell out of for violating the Seventh Commandment.
He is also a Lincoln idolater who has no understanding of the actual federated republic the Founders left us. His America is a centralized Idea Nation. Newt’s Founder is more Toffler than Madison. His “conservatism” more Jaffa than Kirk.
The problem is that too many “conservatives,” who aren’t grounded in actual conservatism, are easily wowed by his ramblings. The thought of watching a debate that includes Newt makes me cringe. He will babble some technocratic wonk speak with a few buzz words thrown in and many rank-and-file conservatives will mistake it for erudition.
I really don’t know if I will be able to take it. Would I be forgiven for sitting this primary season out lest I plunge a screwdriver into my ear while watching a future debate just to make the pain stop. I love Ron Paul and all, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Bede on 10 May 2011 at 2:12 am #
Gingrich is also a diehard “Hispanics are natural Republicans” neocon. Nevermind that nearly all the data say otherwise; if he keeps saying it, it must be true. What a fool.
Julian on 11 May 2011 at 4:53 pm #
Obama is now at 60% approval. He will be re-elected with, I’ll guess, relative ease.
Sean Scallon on 11 May 2011 at 11:31 pm #
The thing to remember about Newt is that he’s never run for nor won anything bigger than his Congressional District. When you run for the top post it’s a different ballgame altogether.
Idea candidates are nice but without grassroots support or money, they’re just that, guys with lots of ideas who get the support of the political press because they always have something say but not the support of the voters.
roho on 14 May 2011 at 3:07 pm #
Newt is a distubance that should go away, and try his hand at actually working for a living again.