Prognostications on the expected outcome of political races are a very risky business. But, with full disclaimers of the flakiness of such activity, we are starting to come to the view that Newt Gingrich will most likely be the Republican nominee for President and that he will beat Obama handsomely.
Here are five reasons why.
1. Gingrich is a relative expert (when looking at the current Republican field) on domestic and international affairs. (In recent political contests the lack of international experience has counted heavily against people like Palin, Cain, and Romney).
2. He is increasingly sounding decisive. (This has not always been the case. More knowledgeable than most, Newt in the past has had the weakness of having three policy ideas on the same question on one day. We admit some of this is style. Gingrich is an "ideas person" and he floats concepts and encourages debate--which can be fine, but also maddening when there are hard and urgent choices to be made.) We heard an interview with him the other day where he laid out what he would be doing in the first 48 hours of a Gingrich presidency. It had all the hallmarks of someone taking charge--which we suspect, given Obamas dillying and dallying, the electorate is craving.
3. His campaign oratory is focused. He has boiled down his message to bullet points. When asked what he considered was "wrong" with Obama, he ran off six one liners that covered the field and were powerful. Most of the other candidates when asked similar questions get out one issue, then get sidetracked by discoursing about it far too much.
4. He is consistently polite and positive when speaking to, or about his Republican rivals. In that sense he is a uniting, non-decisive figure for the Republican Party.
5. He genuinely believes in small government conservatism and constitutionally limited government. He disdains socialism in all its forms--not always consistently, but it is certainly in his ideological DNA.
6. He is a proven fiscal dry with a track record of balancing the US budget and running fiscal surpluses--which required him to demonstrate the ability to work with both houses of Congress. This is now a much more highly prized quality, given Obama's manifest incompetence as a legislator and his consistent inability to work with Congress to do anything. Obama has shown himself to be an ideologue, not a legislator. He--as someone with radical roots--appears to think that announcing something is tantamount to changing the course of history. Such naivety has done great damage and is why his own party in Congress has soured on his presidency.
When the campaigns started in earnest, Gingrich was dismissed as yesterday's man. Now the Republican constituency has had the chance to dance a while with the other (newcomer) candidates and they appear to have decided that yesterday's man might well be the best dancer on the floor. We shall see.
All it will take is the (rumoured) Sarah Palin endorsement and the Tea Party conservatives will ignite in support. No traditional Republican will demur because Gingrich has been a Republican insider for decades--albeit at times a thorn in the side of the establishment.
To our six reasons, Charles Hurt of the Washington Times adds three:
First, Mr. Gingrich is truly Clintonian in all his faults. Yes, there are many, but they have been out there for all to see for a long time. His laundry has been so well-aired over the decades that we are not likely to see Gloria Allred midwifing any new salacious scandals now.
Second, before Mr. Gingrich was the ultimate insider, he was the ultimate outsider. He was a legendary back-bencher in the House before he became speaker, and he was at his best crashing the ramparts from the outside, such as during the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.
Finally, then as now, he is a man of ideas. The improbable recovery of his campaign since its summer collapse is entirely owing to the force of his ideas, laid out in so many debates.
Newt Gingrich is a romantic conservative.
Sure, he thinks that a system that takes from workers and gives to those who refuse to work is evil. But he is most passionate about the evils of a system that destroys and enslaves those it teaches to live off government handouts. It is the most profound and mature concept of “Don’t Tread on Me.” And the perfect pitch for this crop of angry voters.
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