Newt Gingrich

Imagine A President Like This!

Ronald 2 Comments

Imagine a President who governed in a time when the stock market doubled!

Imagine a President who used all of the tools of his office to overcome terrorism!

Imagine a President who adopted the Health Care plan of the Heritage Foundation, including endorsements by then Republican leaders Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole!

Imagine a President whose health care plan was to the right of the plans of President Richard Nixon!

One could say this must be a Republican President in the vein of Ronald Reagan, right?

But it is NOT Ronald Reagan we are talking about!

We are talking about Barack Obama!

The Beginnings Of The Republican Field For The Presidency In 2016 Start To Emerge: More Circus Like Than 2012!

Ronald 11 Comments

Anyone who is clear headed knows that the GOP Presidential field of 2012 was a circus, with such horrible, embarrassing candidates as Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich, all having the effect of making Mitt Romney the LEAST horrible candidate for the White House!

But already, in July 2013, we can see the likely Republican field for the Presidency in 2016 emerging, and if anything, it is more circus like than 2012!

It begins with the two “Ricks”, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, both true embarrassments to themselves and to others, but both believing that God is behind them, and that they will emerge as the next President of the United States, despite the reality that they both represent regressive, mean spirited, and reactionary views out of tune with the changing American electorate!

Then, there are the following potential candidates, all of whom have major flaws and shortcomings that insure they will have a rough time becoming the nominee of the Republican Party for President:

Ted Cruz
Rand Paul
John Thune
Paul Ryan
Scott Walker
Bob McDonnell
John Kasich
Bobby Jindal

Then, there are the potential candidates who would have some appeal to the mainstream, but likely will self destruct due to their catering to the Tea Party Movement, or their refusal to do just that, including:

Marco Rubio
Jeb Bush
Chris Christie
Jon Huntsman

Also, do not dismiss the concept of a Senator Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Vice President, running for President if she wins the Wyoming Senate seat coming up in 2014!

But in the end, the Republican battle for the Presidency is a lost cause, as it is clear that Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat, will have the Electoral College edge for the Presidency, along with the popular vote edge in a nation moving away on a long term basis from the Right Wing message that the Republican Party seems bent on perpetuating, at its own destruction!

Mitt Romney Right On One Matter: Alternatives For 2012 GOP Nomination Were Worse Than Him!

Ronald 6 Comments

A forthcoming book by Dan Balz of the Washington Post reveals that 2012 GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not wish to run, and his family overwhelmingly did not want him to run, but that he decided to do so because of his conclusion that the alternatives for the nomination were worse than him!

For once, and only once, Mitt Romney is correct in his judgment, as the alternatives of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were all much more unacceptable, basically a comedy team!

Only Jon Huntsman, who had no chance to be the nominee, was a far better choice than Romney!

The Republican Party had the worst combination of choices for President of a major political party in the entire history of Presidential elections, and they deserved the defeat they suffered, and will, assuredly, face the same future in 2016!

Republican Party Discipline Is Gone: Looking Back At The Days Of Speaker Newt Gingrich And Speaker Dennis Hastert!

Ronald 2 Comments

The Republican Party from 1995-2007 was headed by Speaker Newt Gingrich for four years and Speaker Dennis Hastert for eight years.

With all of their faults and shortcomings as Speakers of the House of Representatives, there was a sense of loyalty and obedience to the House leadership when it came to floor votes on legislation.

But that is now a dim memory, as Speaker John Boehner is unable to control his own caucus, and was embarrassed yesterday to lose on a vote on the Farm bill, due to the Tea Party radicals who are determined to wipe out the Food Stamp program completely, and have no concern if children, the elderly, and the disabled are starving!

When one listens to the debate and the lack of concern and human compassion that the Tea Party wing nuts have, one would think that Boehner should make a dramatic announcement that he is resigning as Speaker, since the job has become impossible to manage!

Boehner is being destroyed from within, including undermining by his own House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, who is the evil genius behind the Tea Party movement in the House.

Cantor is only concerned about his dream to become Speaker of the House, and is willing to ride roughshod over Boehner, as Cantor has no ethics, morals or scruples, and is a monstrous example of power grabbing gone mad!

The poor GOP performance should lead to repudiation by their constituents in 2014, but with gerrymandering and an old Confederate mentality still existing in much of the South and the border states, and anti government militia mentality in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain areas of the nation, more of this incompetence, stalemate, and gridlock are likely, whether or not John Boehner sees the handwriting on the wall, and resigns, allowing turncoat Eric Cantor to accomplish his dream of turning America backward to the years before the New Deal and Great Society!

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee Has Become A Total Lunatic By Predicting That Barack Obama Will Not Finish Second Presidential Term!

Ronald 11 Comments

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was one of many Republicans who sought the Presidency in 2008, and while not winning the nomination, he came across as a strong conservative with somewhat reasonable views, seen as in the mainstream of the party for that election year. He even came across as likeable and pleasant in personality.

However, once Huckabee gained a radio talk show and an hour on the weekend on Fox News Channel, he went berserk, the best term that can be applied to a man who moved to the “hard” right and has emerged as a delusional and whacky man in his statements, making him a lunatic to any reasonable, rational human being!

And now, Huckabee has declared that the Benghazi, Libya tragedy makes it likely that Barack Obama will be impeached, and be unable to finish his second term as President!

Think about just how loony that statement is! Could Obama be impeached by the Republican controlled House of Representatives? YES, for certain, similar to the 105th Congress under Speaker Newt Gingrich which impeached Bill Clinton on December 19, 1998!

But Clinton ended up, even with a Republican controlled Senate, having votes to remove him from office on two impeachment counts, with a 50-50 tie and a 55-45 vote to remove, making it 17 and 12 votes short of removal from office by a two thirds vote!

And now, the Senate is Democratic 55-45, and even if a Senate trial came in 2015 or 2016, with a possible Republican controlled Senate, there would still be no more than, say, 53-54 Republican Senators, and where would the GOP gain anywhere from 13 Senators then to 22 Senators this year or next to convict and remove Obama from the Presidency?

Huckabee is a true lunatic, therefore, and even if it were to happen, all it would do is give Vice President Joe Biden the Presidency, and an edge for the Presidential Election of 2016, which no one should think would lead to his likely defeat as a sitting President. So what would be gained by the GOP removing a term limited President?:

The answer is, simply, race hatred, pure and simple! There is NO justification to impeach and remove Obama, anymore than there was for Bill Clinton, and just as with Clinton, an impeachment would besmirch Obama in history, but he would still survive in office, and leave more popular as a result, just as with Clinton, who has become a “rock star” in his post Presidency!

The Republican Party: The Party Of “Family Values” And A Multitude Of Sex Scandals!

Ronald 44 Comments

The Republican Party broadcasts its belief in “family values’ constantly, and the most religious people in this nation tend to vote for that party on a regular basis!

The author is not trying to claim that Democrats are not capable of engaging in sex scandals, but they do not use the hypocrisy of claiming to be the party of “family values”, and the number of Republicans who have engaged in sex scandals is much longer than that of Democrats!

A selected list of Republicans involved in sex scandals includes:

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, just elected back to his House seat
Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who has been reelected by his state despite his scandal
Senator John Ensign of Nevada
Senator Larry Craig of Idaho
Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon
Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of Georgia
Congressman Bob Livingston of Louisiana
Mayor Rudy Guiliani of New York City
Congressman Mark Foley of Florida
Presidential Candidate Herman Cain of Georgia

Instead of promoting “family values”, including concern about the lives of the elderly, the young, the poor, women, and the disabled, the GOP does the “religious” thing, while lining their own pockets with the money of lobbyists, who work against the interests of the American people, and promote the rich becoming more wealthy, and presiding over the poverty and deprivation of many of their constituents who, stupidly, vote for them!

The Conservative Political Action Conference: A Bunch Of Retreads And Future Losers!

Ronald 10 Comments

Conservatives are in the third of four days of their annual Conservative Political Action Conference, and it is quite an event, a circus of retreads and future losers, who fail to see that the nation has rejected their ideology when it is presented to them in Senate races, and only holding on to power in the House of Representatives because of gerrymandered districts created by the Tea Party uprising of 2010, which led to a large number of Republican governors and state legislatures at the precisely correct time to affect the shaping of House districts for the ten year cycle following the census figures.

The Tea Party movement has had its heyday, and there are already signs of its future demise, although they will persist in some rural districts in the House, and have their Senators, including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul, all ambitious to be President of the United States, but none of them should be delusional that they will actually be the next President, while they are all fighting to outdo each other three years ahead of 2016!

Attention at this conference is given to such retreads as Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and Newt Gingrich.

Also, such losers as Wayne La Pierre, Grover Norquist and the usual right wing talk show hosts, including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, are part of the “distinguished” speakers spewing forth their divisiveness.

And the conservatives are making clear that they will not budge in any form on the issue of gay rights, immigration reform,their “traditional” view of women being submissive to men, and refusal to separate science from the influence of religion!

There are differences on foreign policy between the libertarians and the neoconservatives, however, and any suggestion of moderation on ANY issue has led to Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell being denied an invitation to speak.

The ultimate reality is that it does not matter what happens at the CPAC, as it is like Don Quixote battling the windmill! The American people are NOT going to elect any of these “clowns”, even those who seem more “moderate”, such as Christie, to the White House in 2016. The Republicans are fighting a civil war, primarily over who shall represent them in 2016, but it is all for naught!

The next President will, assuredly, be a Democrat—whether Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley, Andrew Cuomo, Elizabeth Warren, Mark Warner, Amy Klobuchar or someone else not yet known!

The Sequester Battle Will Have Same Result As Budget Battle Between Bill Clinton And Congress In 1995: Presidential Victory!

Ronald 15 Comments

The Republican Party keeps “shooting itself in the foot”, symbolically, never learning anything, and undermining their support with public opinion.

In 1995, the Republican controlled House and Senate under Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole forced a shutdown of the government over the budget, but eventually had to give in, and Bill Clinton proceeded to win a second term over Dole handily, and the GOP Congress lost seats in 1996.

The budget battles with Barack Obama by the Republican controlled House under John Boehner have also hurt the GOP image in public opinion, and it is certain that the President will win the battle over the present “sequester” crisis, as Obama comes across, after a solid victory in the Presidential Election Of 2012, as speaking for the “people”, while the Republicans are ready to defend the “special interests” and their tax breaks, and hurt the poor, children, the elderly, and government employees.

Obama has a high rating, and the Congress is at a low historically, so the Republican Party is only, in the long run, hurting itself!

Age Vs Youth: Will The Republicans And Democrats Be Switching On Their Presidential Nominees In 2016?

Ronald 2 Comments

When one analyzes the two major political parties in the past forty years, it has been a general reality that the Republican Party has run Presidential candidates who tend to be much older than the Democratic Party nominees for President.

Witness Richard Nixon, nine years older than George McGovern in 1972; Gerald Ford eleven years older than Jimmy Carter in 1976; Ronald Reagan thirteen years older than Jimmy Carter in 1980; Reagan seventeen years older than Walter Mondale in 1984; George H. W. Bush eight years older than Michael Dukakis in 1988; Bush twenty two years older than Bill Clinton in 1992; Bob Dole twenty three years older than Clinton in 1996; John McCain twenty five years older than Barack Obama in 2008; and Mitt Romney fourteen years older than Obama in 2012. Only in 2000 and 2004 did we see George W. Bush older than Al Gore by only two years and in 2004 actually younger than John Kerry by three years.

This phenomenon is maybe just a coincidence, but it has often been said that the Democrats go for youth and the Republicans for experience in their Presidential nominees.

Well, if that is the case, it is about to be switched dramatically in 2016 if one assumes that either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden are the likely front runners for the Democratic Presidential nomination, as Hillary will be 69 in 2016, and Joe will be 74 in 2016. Clinton would be the second oldest first time nominee, behind Ronald Reagan, and Biden would be the oldest first time nominee.

The Republicans are certain to nominate a candidate decades younger, such as Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, or Ted Cruz, all born in the early 1970s, being therefore mid 40s in 2016. If you consider Chris Christie, Scott Walker, or John Thune, they were born in the 1960s, so would be in the mid 50s. Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann all were born in the 1950s, so would be in their late 50s or in the 60s. There is no candidate born in the 1940s seriously mentioned, unless one expects Newt Gingrich to try again for the Presidency, being just a year younger than Joe Biden and four years older than Hillary Clinton.

The Democrats have alternative possible candidates in Martin O’Malley and Amy Klobuchar born in the early 1960s, so either would be mid 50s in 2016, but Andrew Cuomo and Mark Warner, born in the mid 1950s would be nearing or at the age of 60 when running in 2016, and Elizabeth Warren, born in 1949, would be 67 in 2016, only about two years younger than Hillary Clinton.

So we are seeing a likely switch from an older to younger Republican nominee, and a younger to an older Democratic nominee, and the difference in years could be massive, as it was in the past forty years in most Presidential elections.

A final thought: In the nine elections between 1972 and 2012 when the GOP nominee was always older than the Democratic nominee, the Republicans won the election four times, and the Democrats five times, so basically, trying to determine whether age or youth are an advantage is clearly a pure guessing game!

The Republican Party And Debt Default And Government Shutdown: Constant “Hostage Taking” Tactics!

Ronald 1 Comment

Now that the “Fiscal Cliff” battle is over, and Barack Obama has won the battle on raising taxes on high incomes, a compromise at $450,000, instead of his original plan of $250,000, already the Republican Party, which lost the battle with only one third of them supporting it, but with Democratic backing and agreement to conduct a vote by Speaker John Boehner allowing it to pass, are creating a new crisis with reckless, irresponsible Republicans ready to fight on the issue of the raising of the debt limit, which must occur by the end of February. A new “Hostage Taking” situation is being created once again!

Among those Republicans who are arguing for a debt default and government shutdown are:

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
Senator John Cornyn of Texas
Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky
Senator Mike Lee of Utah
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota
Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia, Majority Leader
Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, House Budget Commitee Chairman
Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California, House Majority Whip

Among those arguing against it, but not in public office are:

Former Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
Just about any sane Republican who held office in the past and is holding his or her head in their hands in grief at what their party has become!

Speaker John Boehner has said that we cannot renege on the debt, and he knows that the government shutdown in 1995 by the House Republicans under Newt Gingrich during the Bill Clinton Administration was a disaster, and helped Clinton win a second term, and public opinion polls backed Clinton during the debacle.

But Boehner, having lost support of a dozen House Republicans in the Speakership vote on Wednesday, is weakened, and has a massive headache with Tea Party radicals and others who should know better than to play games with the fiscal health of the American economy!

Boehner has already said he will not speak privately with Obama, and has already insulted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with foul language, which he has not apologized for.

This creates a very awkward situation as the deadline nears iin late February, and all it will do is boost the ratings of the Democrats and President Obama, and further degrade the Republican Party future. Obviously, their defeat in November has NOT changed the mindset of the GOP, and that spells tragedy for their political futures!

A thought that comes to mind is that Vice President Joe Biden might again have to be called upon to negotiate with Boehner and others, since Obama and Reid seem to have no possibility of private discussions with House leaders or Senate leaders. Biden may, again, save the day, for the umpteenth time!

The point is that the Republican Party is fighting a losing battle for public opinion, and if there are bad economic implications, they will be the ones to suffer for it in 2014 and 2016!