Thread: Newt Gingrich

The 2012 election news is slowly getting up to speed, and with Obama being the dem candidate, news primarily reports on the republican side of things.
Apparently, Cain is now supporting Gingrich, but I am wondering about his chances.

From what I have read up until now, Gingrich has no moral compass and has done some very amoral things in the past, like having affairs when his wives were sick, serving divorce papers to a wife in the hospital bed, and leaving his wife with not enough money to pay for the hospital bills.

American Conservatives traditionally put a lot of importance on family values and strong morals, and Gingrich has neither, so I think it is strange that he would have an actual shot at the Republican nomination. But news of the upcoming election is still very sparse here so I am not getting the full picture.

Does he have an actual chance, and if so why doesn't his behavior turn the Conservative voters away from him? Or is he only running for the attention?

In many ways he's the exact opposite of the recent republican talking points - long term washington establishment, getting extremely rich off politics, elitist and a general pompous jerk, extremely condescending....
But I think a lot of conservatives realize the tea-party style hard line uncompromising ideology usually means incompetence and after the fling last year they're now worried.
As far as his morality, the story would be that he's now found God for real and the all the old sins should be forgiven.

And Gingrich is well connected to the big money which buys a lot of votes, propaganda shouldn't be underestimated. I believe that Ron Paul has been pretty high in the polls and everybody seems to consider him having extremely dedicated and enthusiastic base, but he keeps being treated as having no chance whatsoever. He's the most principled and consistent of all candidates, but despite what they'd claim when push comes to shove most people don't seem to care all that much about integrity, they prefer the person who'd tell them what they want to hear.


Eventually among the people who threw their hats in the ring there isn't that much choice, and as much as the conservatives don't want Romney they still have to pick somebody else instead. I think at the end of the day it'll be Romney. The big money will be just fine with one of their own. The christian political fraction will grudgingly support him against Obama, after all one of the things against Obama was that he is muslim and terrorist

Originally Posted by gugi

As far as his morality, the story would be that he's now found God for real and the all the old sins should be forgiven.

Offtopic: I've recently listened to a Pastor going into this argument.

He basically said that Christians have to forgive. the bible is very specific about this.
However, he also said that that does not mean there should be no consequences or limitations.
For example, you'd have to forgive a philanderer, but it would be perfectly fine to put limits in place, preventing him from having prolonged unsupervised contact with members of the opposite sex again.

Forgiveness does not change anything about the offender. Forgiveness for past actions does not change the likelihood of future behavior. If the offender has a defective moral compass to begin with, he will still be like that after he is forgiven.

I'm not an expert, but from what I can tell the view among many traditional christians here in US is that the only true moral compass comes from God. So, once a person has truly turned his heart to God, he's got fixed and it's all good.
It's like president GW Bush - he had a problem with alcoholism earlier in his life, but by the time he was a candidate he was over it and I think he really was not touching alcohol anymore.

And at his age Gingrich probably has lower level of testosterone, so philandering may not be an issue anymore.

It's not a legal issue either, so whenever it's brought up it'll be treated as a negative smear campaign. He'll be forced by his campaign advisors to change the narrative for why it happened, though
I don't think "There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate" is very convincing, especially since his hard work for the good of the country at that time was trying to impeach Bill Clinton over Lewinskigate.


In the last elections McCain had a similar issue in his history (much milder case though), I don't think it bothered anybody. He said that's his biggest regret he has in his life and that was the end of it.

McCain was different imo, in that he seemed a fairly decent guy who made a mistake sometime. My main gripe with him was his age, combined with his pick for VP.
With Gingrich otoh his behavior seems institutional.

Btw, the same pastor had a straightforward answer to what you said.
He basically said that if everything was because of what God or Satan wants, there would not need to be a judgement day.
Instead, we received free will, which is good because it allows us control over our lives, but also means that there will be a reckoning for our actions. Even if you are a born again Christian and look to God for your moral compass, you are still fallible because your free will allows you to make wrong decisions.

Politics.... Religion..... So far so good gentlemen! Bruno, I like what that Pastor had to say, lots of good points. Is there an election coming up? Just kidding, but without cable or over air stations coming into my house, I don't have to listen to too many ad campaigns. I just grab a newspaper or check out some online questionnaires filled out by the candidates and try to wade through the political speak to make a decision. I do got to say that it is much easier for the primaries when you have an incumbent on the other side; only one race to pay attention to. I would like to see more diversity in thought and parties instead of the established two. Newt, don't know enough about him yet to make a decision, I'll just wait until the field is narrowed a bit before I do my research. However, I think there was a picture somewhere of Mike Huckabee (from last election cycle) getting a straight razor shave from a barber!

Originally Posted by Bruno

Does he have an actual chance, and if so why doesn't his behavior turn the Conservative voters away from him? Or is he only running for the attention?

Yes, and it will to some extent in the primaries. I don't think he's only running for the attention.

As far as morality, it could be that Newt is not seen as a hypocrite because he has this pattern of immoral behavior, does not deny it, and does not demand higher values from others. In the past, Dan Quayle for example, have been burned by appearing to put on too much of a holier-than-thou attitude - Newt may be arrogant but I don't think he has that particular problem

Regarding conservatives, I think many might weigh Obama against the eventual Republican nominee on the sin scale with perceived sins against the Constitution and tea party ideals weighing more heavily than perceived sins against one's wife, God, etc.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

As far as morality, it could be that Newt is not seen as a hypocrite because he has this pattern of immoral behavior, does not deny it, and does not demand higher values from others. In the past, Dan Quayle for example, have been burned by appearing to put on too much of a holier-than-thou attitude - Newt may be arrogant but I don't think he has that particular problem

I'm not sure that's the case. He was having an affair at the same time when he was trying to impeach Clinton. I guess that was technically over Clinton lying, not for having his cigars in unorthodox ways, but I bet to a lot of people the real issue was the sex.
Then recently he demanded that Barney Frank be fired for being 'close to lobbyists' when Gingrich was paid millions by the same people at the same time.
But I think the stuff that would be brought to the attention of those who vote in the primaries is going to be different than the stuff that's brought up to the attention of the larger pool who votes in the actual election.

I read that when he was challenged on his big government sins of the past last weekend or so his response was - pretty much all conservatives were in that same boat. At the end of the day it's a choice among those 5 or 6 who are actually running. One is a flip-flopper with a religion largely thought as a cult, one is having trouble stringing coherent sentences together, one is too consistent and often at odds with many of the 'conservative talking points' of the day, one is a woman and prone to gaffes of crazy talking without any facts, and the rest are barely getting any traction. So, compared to all of those Gingrich probably doesn't look all that bad, especially now that the primary campaigning has changed completely from the past and is primarily in a form where he has an edge to the rest.

OK, wonderful job of baiting but I won't bite. I'll only say that given Obama's pole numbers and the state of the economy, it probably doesn't matter what Republican runs against him, he's gonna get his clock cleaned. Does Gingrich have baggage? Sure he does, who doesn't? It's remarkable to me though that the mainstream media will scarcely report on a Democrat's indiscretion but it seems like Republicans are called out for everything. I'm not defending Gingrich but there does seem to be a double standard.

More disturbing to me is the apparent campaign strategy from the Dems. Obama obviously cannot run on his record so the strategy seems to be smear and discredit any threats to the regime. As long as we have enough money to dig up or (if needed) making up damning evidence against this candidate or that, the media is a willing and capable accomplice. Of course, the electorate is obviously too stupid to engage in any critical thinking. This is the stuff of political campaigns in the Banana Republics of the 1970's.

Originally Posted by 1OldGI

I'm not defending Gingrich but there does seem to be a double standard.

Not even close. Clinton, Wiener, Spitzer, Edwards, Inouye, Massa, McGreevey....
The double standard is in Republicans being let off the hook much easier - Vitter, Folley, Craig...


'Nice try' on smear and discredit, but somehow magically Romney doesn't get smeared and discredited on his morals. May be he's just one of the liberals, so it's the 'double standard'. Or for that matter Paul, Perry, Santorum and Huntsman as well.