Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Newt To Run in '08? Oh, Happy Days



From today's Washington Times comes this report:

Newt Gingrich is moving closer to a presidential nomination bid in a severely divided Republican Party.

"I will decide based on whether I have about $30 million in committed campaign contributions and whether I think it is possible to run a campaign based on ideas rather than 30-second sound bites," the former House speaker told The Washington Times yesterday.


Democrats ought to have a one-word response to this news: Puh-lease! For them, it would be happy days for Gingrich to have to explain his personal foibles: leaving sick wives, engaging in an extramarital affair during the Clinton impeachment. What a candidate for the supposed party of family values.

The article also goes on to say,

Mr. Gingrich has proposed an informal committee of congressional lawmakers from both parties "to meet every two weeks with the next president" that would foster far less partisanship.


That's funny, coming from a fellow who used to routinely advise his fellow Republicans to call Democrats "traitors," "sick," "bizarre," and betrayers. Name-calling partisanship was essential to Gingrich's rise to power in the 1990s. Perhaps he's mellowed with age. Does he renounce the Newt of the 90s?

Regarding his possible presidential bid, The Washington Times reports,

Mr. Gingrich figures he would need at least $30 million to conduct competitive television-ad campaigns in the first five primary and caucus states--Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and perhaps Florida or Michigan.


This is the give-away that Gingrich is just yanking the chain of the Moonie newspaper. A candidate cannot collect $30 million in commitments , as Gingrich suggested he might do. The most an individual can give to a presidential contender for a primary election is $2300. That means Gingrich will have to collect promises from 13,000 folks (assuming they max out) in order to know he can bank the $30 million he assumes he needs.

Collecting such promises is probably about as tough as collecting the actual money. And if he hasn't started banking all these IOUs (or I-will-gives) already, there's no way he can do so in time to make a timely entry.

He's blowing smoke. He just wants the attention. But if it will make a difference, I promise to give him fifty bucks if he enters the race. I'd be delighted to see him discuss the "sick," "shallow," "selfish," "permissive" acts of "hypocrisy" from his past.

Posted by David Corn at September 12, 2007 12:29 PM

12 comments:

capt said...

"If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes."

~Newt Gingrich

David B. Benson said...

What a loon!

Yes, by all means have him become the Rebugs choice to run aginst Edwards...

Anonymous said...

Newt would make Edwards look like the runner-up in a 7th grade student council election.

capt said...

Burning water


Burning water
Apparently, you really can burn water -- provided it's saltwater. And you're using radio waves to ignite it.

So claims John Kanzius of Erie, Penn., who made the accidental discovery of what could turn out to be a plentiful new fuel source.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Rustum Roy, a Penn State chemist, has confirmed Kanzius's claims, which he calls "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years."

"It's true, it works," Dr. Roy said. "Everyone told me, 'Rustum, don't be fooled. He put electrodes in there.' "
But there are no electrodes and no gimmicks, he said.
Dr. Roy said the salt water isn't burning per se, despite appearances. The radio frequency actually weakens bonds holding together the constituents of salt water -- sodium chloride, hydrogen and oxygen -- and releases the hydrogen, which, once ignited, burns continuously when exposed to the RF energy field. Mr. Kanzius said an independent source measured the flame's temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.



More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Pennsylvania State University
102 Materials Research Lab,
University Park, PA 16802

Tel: (814) 865-3421;
Fax: (814) 863-7040

Email: rroy@psu.edu
Administrative Assistants:
Laurene Wisler: ldw12@psu.edu

Judy Hazel: jzh5@psu.edu

*****

Could be an elaborate hoax but . . .

capt said...

Howie's Stupid Newt Quote Page


Newt Admits He's Full of Crap

"There were times I was praying and I felt I was doing things that were wrong but I was still doing them. There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards. I knew I couldn't cast the first stone as I knew I had weaknesses. I drew a line in my mind and said even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed and even on a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being. Newt Gingrich Source:www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2030773,00.html

"It is perfectly American to be wrong." -- Newt Gingrich

"To the degree I was too brash, Too self-confident or too pushy, I apologize." -- Newt in 1997

The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.

In every election in American history both parties have their cliches. The party that has the cliches that ring true wins.

If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.

I discourage a cult of personality.

If Thomas Edison invented electric light today, Dan Rather would report it on CBS News as "candle making industry threatened.


The greatest leaders in fighting for an integrated America in the twentieth century were in the Democratic Party. The fact is, it was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that ended segregation. The fact is that it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who gave hope to a nation that was in despair and could have slid into dictatorship. And the fact is, every Republican has much to learn from studying what the Democrats did right.

We're all human and we all goof. Do things that may be wrong, but do something.

I love the environment, but I'm cheap on the environment.

A mere forty years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. No bureaucrat would have invented it, and that's what freedom is all about.

It may just be because I get homesick, but I have concluded Washington's cherry blossoms are just plain overrated.

I'm not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too much. What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority. If [voters] care about parking lots, then talk about parking lots.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

"I raised so much money over the years, from so many different people that ... I don't owe anyone." -- Newt Gingrich

"She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife." - Newt, on his first wife.
"I want to repeal the New Deal."

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations

You have to give the press confrontations. When you give them confrontations, you get attention; when you get attention, you can educate.

I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics.

"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government....We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Newt Gingrich Source:speech to the National Federation of Republican Women, Apr 2007

In 1998, Newt Gingrich, leaving a meeting at the Oval Office, said to Clinton: "Mr. President, we are going to run you out of town." In about a year, it was Gingrich out of a job, not the president. Newt Gingrich Source:THE SURVIVOR: President Clinton and His Times

"If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes." Newt Gingrich
1.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

No to be concerned Newt will never make it to the primaries.




capt

capt said...

Too much recorded past for Newt to hide behind a new facade.

Newt Gingrich's Skeleton Closet

Makes for some funny reading.


capt

Carey said...

Mr. Corn,

Do we haaave to think about Gingrich?? You'd be dragging me kicking and screaming into that ponderance. It's reminiscent of having to think about Reagan's presidential ambitions. We knew him well out here in California.

Capt,

Continuing with the last thread, I too have been experiencing angst over 2008. I'm smack dab in the middle of Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse. Man are my cockles raised. Those "caging lists"!!

One way or another Dems will be blamed. What's new? I'm with Sidney Blumenthal on this one. This is effin radical stuff down to the last cherry-picked tidbit.

Finally, though, I think I'm hearing a public reaction and realization that this is class warfare and their very livlihoods are threatended. That's a tad encouraging.

Blatant consumerism always puts a stop to those enlightened thoughts of class warfare but China kind of screwed up there, didn't they? They contaminated our kids and pets.

capt said...

"China kind of screwed up there, didn't they? They contaminated our kids and pets."

Grrrr, I am so pissed that some people lost their pets. And the lead toys and paint should have been caught by the importers long ago.

Heads should roll but if poisoning our kids and pets doesn't demand a boycott of Chinese goods what ever will.

I was listening to Kucinich on the Ed Shultz show on the radio - 3 hours and I was floored.

I think it will be hard to get me interested in any other candidate.

I hope everybody would listen to the whole 3 hours. I missed a little but WOW - Dennis is talking sense about too many things.


capt

David B. Benson said...

$80 a barrel today.

Go, go, go...

capt said...

The principal power in Washington is no longer the government or the people it represents. It is the Money Power. Under the deceptive cloak of campaign contributions, access and influence, votes and amendments are bought and sold. Money established priorities of action, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, shifts income from the middle class to the very rich. Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuses of wealth--laws that mandate environmental protection, antitrust laws, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities markets, and many more: Richard N. Goodwin - Speechwriter for John F. Kennedy

=
Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else: Bill Moyers - PBS Commentator

=
Money becomes evil not when it is used to buy goods but when it is used to buy power... economic inequalities become evil when they are translated into political inequalities: Samuel Huntington - Political Scientist

=

"None of us would trade freedom of expression for the narrowness of the public censor. America is a free market for people who have something to say, and need not fear to say it."- Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978) US Vice-President, US Senator (D-MN) Source: New York Times, 9 March 1967

=
"The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our history abundantly attest." -- Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Source: Lovell v. City of Griffin


===


Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Anonymous said...

Ha - ha - ha !

David Corn assumes that the pundits will pile on and discuss the "sick," "shallow," "selfish," "permissive" acts of "hypocrisy" from Newt's past.

Well, think again, Mr. Corn. The people with the biggest mouths and the deepest pockets will line up behind Newt if they think he can bullshit his way into the nomination. And the Dem candidates will play by higher standards and not make an issue of his sordid past.

...so, yeah, I can see Newtie-patootie coming to the resuce if he deems it necessary for the good of the GOP and neoconservatism.

Don't ever underestimate Newt when it comes to chutzpah -- his supreme self-confidence knows no equals.

capt said...

New Thread