Newt pays the media a compliment
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Much about Newt Gingrich's campaign for the Republican presidential nod is puzzling, but I found his compliment of the news media in South Carolina last week for its "destructive, vicious, negative nature" to be encouraging.
I'm sure he meant it as a snivel, but the fact that he noted it means that we are doing our jobs. I would state the media's role in the Republican campaign, and in the national Democratic-Republican campaign to come, is to put in front of the American people as much accurate information about the candidates as possible. Presumably, on that basis, voters can make an informed choice, first, the Republicans among the Republican candidates, and, afterward, the American voters among the two or more (if, for example, the tea party runs a candidate, or Ron Paul runs as an independent) final presidential candidates.
Mr. Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have all not been too pleased at the media's digging up part of their pasts to report on with reference to the current campaign. This is absolutely necessary in any case, but particularly as each candidate draws on the rich pool of money at his disposal, in no small part as part of the results of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the subsequent creation of so-called super-PACs, to shape public images.
That decision said that in the context of the appropriateness of a corporation's campaigning for candidates, "freedom of speech" meant that a corporation is the same as an individual. The line I like best on that subject is that I will agree that a corporation is the same as a person when Texas executes one.
In the cases of these three, the diggings have been rich and illustrative. Ron Paul's prospects are scarred by something else other than his past. I happen to agree with some of his views on foreign policy issues, but some of his positions on domestic issues remind me of the various slogans that surrounded Barry Goldwater's candidacy for president in 1964. Those who agreed with him ran on the slogan, "In your heart you know he's right." Those who opposed him turned that around to, "In your guts you know he's nuts." Ron Paul very briefly overlapped with Barry Goldwater in Congress.
Of the candidates who remain standing after last week's South Carolina primary, Mr. Romney has reaped the most votes across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, with 295,000. Mr. Gingrich is second with 283,000, Mr. Paul is third with 161,000, and Mr. Santorum fourth, with 155,000.
Mr. Romney is damaged by several phenomena. The first is his northeastern origins. Even though in many ways he is the quintessential American with claims to roots in Massachusetts, Michigan and Utah, his sometimes Mad Men-like preppiness and smoothness can make it hard for ordinary Americans to identify with him and his "story." He and his handlers have not managed the fact of all his money well at all. He comes across as rich and out of touch with the vicissitudes of ordinary Americans. He pays a lower rate of income tax because much of what comes into his hands are capital gains. Nearly half of Americans earn no capital gains; some don't even know what they are.
That aspect of Mr. Romney should not serve as the basis for class hatred, but for most voters it puts him in another world. If his tax returns reveal substantial Cayman Islands holdings and profits from drowning small businesses in sacks for Bain Capital, his South Carolina loss may have been the end of him.
Mr. Romney's Mormon faith is also a problem in some parts of the country and some segments of the population, although it did not stop him from being elected governor of Massachusetts, one of the most secular of our states. There might be hierarchical or authority issues. The question has been asked whether the Mormon church played any role in Mormon former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman joining, dropping out of the race or endorsing Mr. Romney afterward, for example. These questions need to be addressed frankly.
Mr. Gingrich and his Warrior Princess third wife are in many ways figures from the past. Americans are into nostalgia, for sure, but whether they want a 67-year-old, overweight, previously politically rejected, longtime Washington lobbyist (albeit in denial) as president for the 2013-16 period is another question altogether, in my view.
Mr. Gingrich fit in very nicely in the Bill Clinton, stained blue dress, Whitewater, Tyson investments and Hillary Washington. But that was years ago. We have changed. I heard him speak a number of times in the late 1990s. I thought he was intelligent -- the British use the word "clever" with a different meaning than ours -- but president of the United States is bad casting for him, in my view.
Pennsylvanians continue to have a very hard time locking in on the idea that one of our former senators, rejected at the polls by a crushing margin not more than six years ago, is now a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination.
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist, Sally Kalson, addressed in an article Jan. 22 ("Karen Santorum's Past") another aspect of his candidacy, the fact that his wife, with him now apparently avidly anti-choice, lived with a Pittsburgh abortion doctor for six years in a previous chapter of her life. Ms. Kalson's conclusion was that it wasn't relevant, that we all have the right to change our opinions on important issues.
However all of this comes out, with the Florida primary Jan. 31 the next episode, it is very much to America's interests that the Republicans arrive at a candidate who would be credible as president, not just one capable of debating Barack Obama. I will view the Florida primary from afar, visiting my stepson, his wife and daughter in Bolivia, where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died. Speaking of nostalgia, they were apparently real. They were allegedly killed Nov. 7, 1908, about 104 years before our elections, and their graves are said to be in a small cemetery in a village called San Vicente.
Bolivia is said to practice liberal immigration policies.
First Published January 25, 2012 12:00 am
