The Frothy Mix Of GOP Candidates

DonkeyHotey

Shows how much I know.  I assumed that Rick Santorum was only staying in the race so that he could garner enough publicity to alter the Google rankings and get his name back.  But Creepy Rick has now won four states, including two -- Minnesota and Colorado -- that Romney won in 2008.  Maybe his latest surge stems from Pat Boone's coveted endorsement.  More likely, it is because the base of the party continues to look for a more conservative candidate than Mitt Romney, but a less toxic one than Newt Gingrich.

The common wisdom is that Romney has the money, the organization and the GOP establishment support to eventually secure the nomination.  But the possibility of defeat remains a risk he can't afford to ignore.  If Santorum does well on Super Tuesday, things could get very interesting.

Here's what Nate Silver has to say:

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas. Instead, much of his support has come from the wealthy areas that Charles Murray calls Super ZIPs — few of which are in swing states in the general election.

And so Romney and his uncoordinated Super PACS must continue to devote their resources to slapping down Santorum and Gingrich, rather than honing in on President Obama.

In addition, the interminable primary battle (remember when Michele Bachmann won something in Iowa and Rick Perry was taken seriously?) with its fifty or so debates (but who's counting) has not sparked much excitement from the Republican faithful.  On the contrary, as Silver notes, "polls show that a large number of Republicans have tepid enthusiasm for their field. And this has been reflected in the turnout so far, which is down about 10 percent from 2008 among Republican registrants and identifiers." 

Bill Clinton once said that "Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line," but the distaste among the Republican rank-and-file for Romney has got to be deeply worrying to the Grand Old Party. 

Greg Sargent wonders "whether Romney’s weaknesses as a general election candidate have been papered over by the far more glaring weaknesses of his rivals."  And really, if Romney can't handily beat these clowns, how does he have a chance against Obama?

No Responsible Democrat Should Want Newt Gingrich To Get The GOP Nomination

Robbie Conal

I wasn't particularly politically savvy as a college student in 1980, evidenced by the fact that I relished the idea of Ronald Reagan winning the Republican nomination for President.  I was sure that Reagan's 1950s world view, his far right bona fides, and his intellectual deficits would make him a laughably easy candidate to defeat.  So much so that I voted for -- dare I admit this? -- third-party candidate, John Anderson.  That didn't work out so well, did it?  -- Lovechilde 

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website

Republicans are worried sick about Newt Gingrich’s ascendance, while Democrats are tickled pink.

Yet no responsible Democrat should be pleased at the prospect that Gingrich could get the GOP nomination. The future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency.

The Republican worry is understandable. “The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handling the election over to Obama,” says former Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty, a leading GOP conservative. “I think that’s shared by a lot of folks in the Republican party.”

Pawlenty’s views are indeed widely shared in Republican circles. “He’s not a conservative – he’s an opportunist,” says pundit Joe Scarborough, a member of the Republican Class of 1994 who came to Washington under Gingrich’s banner. Gingrich doesn’t “have the temperament, intellectual discipline or ego control to be either a successful nominee or president,”says New York Republican representative Peter King, who hasn’t endorsed any candidate. “Basically, Newt can’t control himself.”

Gingrich is “an embarrassment to the party,” says New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, and “was run out of the speakership” on ethics violations. Republican strategist Mike Murphy says “Newt Cingrich could not carry a swing state in the general election if it was made of feathers.”

“Weird” is the word I hear most from Republicans who have worked with him. Scott Klug, a former Republican House member from Wisconsin, who hasn’t endorsed anyone yet, says “Newt has ten ideas a day – two of them are good, six are weird and two are very weird.”

Newt’s latest idea, for example – to colonize the moon – is typically whacky.



The Republican establishment also points to polls showing Gingrich’s supporters to be enthusiastic but his detractors even more fired up. In the latest ABC News/ Washington Post poll, 29 percent view Gingrich favorably while 51 percent have an unfavorable view of him. (Obama, by contrast, draws a 53 percent favorable and 43 percent unfavorable.)

Independents, who will be key to the general election, are especially alarmed by Gingrich.
As they should be. It’s not just Newt’s weirdness. It’s also the stunning hypocrisy. His personal life makes a mockery of his moralistic bromides. He condemns Washington insiders but had a forty-year Washington career that ended with ethic violations. He fulminates against finance yet drew fat checks from Freddie Mac. He poses as a populist but has had a $500,000 revolving charge at Tiffany’s.
And it’s the flagrant irresponsibility of many of his propositions – for example, that presidents are not bound by Supreme Court rulings, that the liberal Ninth Circuit court of appeals should be abolished, that capital gains should not be taxed, that the First Amendment guarantees freedom “of” religion but not “from” religion.

It’s also Gingrich’s eagerness to channel the public’s frustrations into resentments against immigrants, blacks, the poor, Muslims, “liberal elites,” the mainstream media, and any other group that’s an easy target of white middle-class and working-class anger.

These are all the hallmarks of a demagogue.

Yet Democratic pundits, political advisers, officials and former officials are salivating over the possibility of a Gingrich candidacy. They agree with key Republicans that Newt would dramatically increase the odds of Obama’s reelection and would also improve the chances of Democrats taking control over the House and retaining control over the Senate.

I warn you. It’s not worth the risk.

Even if the odds that Gingrich as GOP presidential candidate would win the general election are 10 percent, that’s too much of a risk to the nation. No responsible American should accept a 10 percent risk of a President Gingrich.

I’d take a 49 percent odds of a Mitt Romney win – who in my view would make a terrible president – over a 10 percent possibility that Newt Gingrich would become the next president – who would be an unmitigated disaster for America and the world.

 Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  He writes a blog at www.robertreich.org.  His most recent book is Aftershock.

State Of Disunion: A Globalizing Private Sector, A Government Overwhelmed By Corporate Money

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website

Who should have the primary strategic responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government? This will be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama will make the case that government has a vital role. His Republican rivals disagree. Mitt Romney charges the President is putting “free enterprise on trial,” while Newt Gingrich merely fulminates about “liberal elites.”

American business won’t and can’t lead the way to more and better jobs in the United States. First, the private sector is increasingly global, with less and less stake in America. Second, it’s driven by the necessity of creating profits, not better jobs.

The National Science Foundation has just released its biennial report on global investment in science, engineering and technology. The NSF warns that the United States is quickly losing ground to Asia, especially to China. America’s share of global R&D spending is tumbling. In the decade to 2009, it dropped from 38 percent to 31 percent, while Asia’s share rose from 24 to 35 percent.

One big reason: According to the NSF, American firms nearly doubled their R&D investment in Asia over these years, to over $7.5 billion.

GE recently announced a $500 million expansion of its R&D facilities in China. The firm has already invested $2 billion.

GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt chairs Obama’s council on work and competitiveness. I’d wager that as an American citizen, Immelt is concerned about working Americans. But as CEO of GE, Immelt’s job is to be concerned about GE’s shareholders. They aren’t the same.


GE has also been creating more jobs outside the United States than in it. A decade ago, fewer than half of GE’s employees were non-American; today, 54 percent are.

This is all good for GE and its shareholders, but it’s not necessarily good for America or American workers. The Commerce Department says U.S. based global corporations added 2.4 million workers abroad in first decade of 21^st century, while cutting their US workforce by 2.9 million.

According to the New York Times, Apple Computer employs 43,000 people in the United States but contracts with over 700,000 workers abroad. It makes iPhones in China not only because of low wages there but also the ease and speed with which its Chinese contractor can mobilize their workers – from company dormitories at almost any hour of the day or night.

An Apple executive says “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” He might have added “and showing a big enough profits to continually increase our share price.”

Most executives of American companies agree. If they can make it best and cheapest in China, or anywhere else, that’s where it will be made. Don’t blame them. That’s what they’re getting paid to do.

What they want in America is lower corporate taxes, less regulation, and fewer unionized workers. But none of these will bring good jobs to America. These steps may lower the costs of production here, but global companies can always find even lower costs abroad.

Global corporations — wherever they’re based — will create good jobs for Americans only if Americans are productive enough to summon them. Problem is, a large and growing portion of our workforce isn’t equipped to be productive.

Put simply, American workers are hobbled by deteriorating schools, unaffordable college tuitions, decaying infrastructure, and declining basic R&D. All of this is putting us on a glide path toward even lousier jobs and lower wages.

Get it? The strategic responsibility for making Americans more globally competitive can’t be centered in the private sector because the private sector is rapidly going global, and it’s designed to make profits rather than good jobs. The core responsibility has to be in government because government is supposed to be looking out for the public, and investing in public schools, colleges, infrastructure, and basic R&D.

But here’s the political problem. American firms have huge clout in Washington. They maintain legions of lobbyists and are pouring boatloads of money into political campaigns. After the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, there’s no limit.

Who represents the American workforce? Organized labor represents fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers and has all it can do to protect a dwindling number of unionized jobs.

Republicans like it this way, and for three decades have been trying to convince average working Americans government is their enemy. Yet corporate America isn’t their friend. Without bold government action on behalf of our workforce, good American jobs will continue to disappear.

 Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  He writes a blog at www.robertreich.org.  His most recent book is Aftershock.

G.O.P. In A Nutshell

DonkeyHotey

So what are the overarching characteristics of each of the hopefuls for the GOP nomination for president?  Newt Gingrich is mean-spirited, polarizing, arrogant and, as Paul Krugman said, "a stupid man's view of what a smart man sounds like;" Mitt Romney is a liar who will say anything and take any position to get elected; Ron Paul is an anti-Semitic, racist, homophobe; Rick Perry seems to be cognitively impaired, once accurately describing his own brain as "like chicken pot pie;" Michele Bachmann must be insane given the things that come out of her mouth; and Rick Santorum is a religious zealot obsessed with gay sex.

Robert Reich wrote last week that our democracy can't work when one of our two political parties is not "grounded in the realities of governing."  What is so disturbing about the half-dozen candidates who embody the hopes and dreams of the Republican Party is that they don't seem in to grounded in reality at all.

Why The Republican Crackup Is Bad For America

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website

Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican crackup threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for America.
The crackup isn’t just Romney the smooth versus Gingrich the bomb-thrower.

Not just House Republicans who just scotched the deal to continue payroll tax relief and extended unemployment insurance benefits beyond the end of the year, versus Senate Republicans who voted overwhelmingly for it.

Not just Speaker John Boehner, who keeps making agreements he can’t keep, versus Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who keeps making trouble he can’t control.

And not just venerable Republican senators like Indiana’s Richard Lugar, a giant of foreign policy for more than three decades, versus primary challenger state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who apparently misplaced and then rediscovered $320 million in state tax revenues.

Some describe the underlying conflict as Tea Partiers versus the Republican establishment. But this just begs the question of who the Tea Partiers really are and where they came from.

The underlying conflict lies deep into the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old.

As Michael Lind has noted, today’s Tea Party is less an ideological movement than the latest incarnation of an angry white minority – predominantly Southern, and mainly rural – that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way.


It’s no mere coincidence that the states responsible for putting the most Tea Party representatives in the House are all former members of the Confederacy. Of the Tea Party caucus, twelve hail from Texas, seven from Florida, five from Louisiana, and five from Georgia, and three each from South Carolina, Tennessee, and border-state Missouri.

Others are from border states with significant Southern populations and Southern ties. The four Californians in the caucus are from the inland part of the state or Orange County, whose political culture has was shaped by Oklahomans and Southerners who migrated there during the Great Depression.

This isn’t to say all Tea Partiers are white, Southern or rural Republicans – only that these characteristics define the epicenter of Tea Party Land.

And the views separating these Republicans from Republicans elsewhere mirror the split between self-described Tea Partiers and other Republicans.

In a poll of Republicans conducted for CNN last September, nearly six in ten who identified themselves with the Tea Party say global warming isn’t a proven fact; most other Republicans say it is.
Six in ten Tea Partiers say evolution is wrong; other Republicans are split on the issue. Tea Party Republicans are twice as likely as other Republicans to say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, and half as likely to support gay marriage.

Tea Partiers are more vehement advocates of states’ rights than other Republicans. Six in ten Tea Partiers want to abolish the Department of Education; only one in five other Republicans do. And Tea Party Republicans worry more about the federal deficit than jobs, while other Republicans say reducing unemployment is more important than reducing the deficit.

In other words, the radical right wing of today’s GOP isn’t that much different from the social conservatives who began asserting themselves in the Party during the 1990s, and, before them, the “Willie Horton” conservatives of the 1980s, and, before them, Richard Nixon’s “silent majority.”
Through most of these years, though, the GOP managed to contain these white, mainly rural and mostly Southern, radicals. After all, many of them were still Democrats. The conservative mantle of the GOP remained in the West and Midwest – with the libertarian legacies of Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft and Barry Goldwater, neither of whom was a barn-burner – while the epicenter of the Party remained in New York and the East.

But after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as the South began its long shift toward the Republican Party and New York and the East became ever more solidly Democratic, it was only a matter of time. The GOP’s dominant coalition of big business, Wall Street, and Midwest and Western libertarians was losing its grip.

The watershed event was Newt Gingrich’s takeover of the House, in 1995. Suddenly, it seemed, the GOP had a personality transplant. The gentlemanly conservatism of House Minority Leader Bob Michel was replaced by the bomb-throwing antics of Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Tom DeLay.
Almost overnight Washington was transformed from a place where legislators tried to find common ground to a war zone. Compromise was replaced by brinkmanship, bargaining by obstructionism, normal legislative maneuvering by threats to close down government – which occurred at the end of 1995.

Before then, when I’d testified on the Hill as Secretary of Labor, I had come in for tough questioning from Republican senators and representatives – which was their job. After January 1995, I was verbally assaulted. “Mr. Secretary, are you a socialist?” I recall one of them asking.

But the first concrete sign that white, Southern radicals might take over the Republican Party came in the vote to impeach Bill Clinton, when two-thirds of senators from the South voted for impeachment. (A majority of the Senate, you may recall, voted to acquit.)

America has had a long history of white Southern radicals who will stop at nothing to get their way – seceding from the Union in 1861, refusing to obey Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, shutting the government in 1995, and risking the full faith and credit of the United States in 2010.

Newt Gingrich’s recent assertion that public officials aren’t bound to follow the decisions of federal courts derives from the same tradition.

This stop-at-nothing radicalism is dangerous for the GOP because most Americans recoil from it. Gingrich himself became an object of ridicule in the late 1990s, and many Republicans today worry that if he heads the ticket the Party will suffer large losses.

It’s also dangerous for America. We need two political parties solidly grounded in the realities of governing. Our democracy can’t work any other way.

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  He writes a blog at www.robertreich.org.  His most recent book is Aftershock.

From Nixon To Newt: Why We Must Honor The Rule Of Law

"When the president does it, that means it is not illegal."  -- Richard Nixon

DonkeyHotey

When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for "all offenses against the United States," he stated that it was out of concern for the "immediate future of this great country."  He should have considered the longer term.  We may have been spared short-term trauma, but Ford's pardon guaranteed that future high government officials would feel unconstrained by the checks and balances of the other branches of government.

Next came Iran-Contra. While the Republicans stacked the joint legislative committee undertaking the investigation with the conservative wing of their party (e.g., then-Representative Cheney), the Democrats relied mostly on moderates, and thus the committee members were skewed toward those who were disinclined to probe very vigorously.  By rashly granting immunity to key witnesses such as Ollie North, the committee undermined prosecutions by an independent counsel.  The Iran-Contra Affair culminated in the pardon by first President Bush of several participants who had been implicated.  The lesson that the president and his circle had nothing to fear from overriding the will of Congress was reaffirmed.

President Obama has refused to seek any meaningful investigation of his predecessor's "War on Terror," despite substantial evidence --indeed, admissions -- that wiretapping laws were broken and torture was authorized at the highest levels.  Much like President Ford, Obama claimed that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”  Thus, once again a clear signal was provided to future presidents that there would be no consequences for abuse of power.

President Obama maintains that he is committed to the rule of law and won't authorize torture.  And as he is about to sign a defense spending bill that will authorize the President of the United States to order indefinite detention of suspect terrorists without charges or court hearing, we are supposed to feel assured that Obama won't wantonly abuse this power.  But even assuming, without conceding, that Barack Obama is scrupulous in his respect for civil liberties and human rights, what is to stop the next president? 

Newt Gingrich has such disdain for the rule of law and the separation of powers that, as president, he would refuse to follow Supreme Court rulings he believed were incorrectly decided.  He rejects the long-standing principle of judicial review by which the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of whether legislation or executive branch actions are constitutional.  He believes it would be proper for Congress to subpoena federal judges, and he would be willing to abolish federal courts if they issued rulings with which he disagrees.

The Supreme Court's 2008 decision that the Bush Administration exceeded its constitutional authority in handling suspected terrorist detainees at Guantanamo would have been rejected by Gingrich if he were president:  “A commander in chief could simply issue instructions to ignore it, and say it’s null and void and I do not accept it because it infringes on my duties as commander in chief to protect the country." 

Gingrich's views on the powers of the presidency, whether you call them radical or simply bat-shit crazy, provide us with a jarring reminder of why a true reckoning of a prior administration's misdeeds is so essential and why enshrining into law provisions on indefinite detention which provide even greater discretion to the executive branch is so troubling.

GOP Reaps What It Sows: Newt Gingrich

Donkey Hotey

After challenging the legitimacy of the President, obstructing any and all reasonable policies if a byproduct of their success might be to bolster the President's standing, and sullying the level of political discourse with venomous nonsense in order to fire up its base, the Republican leadership should hardly be surprised that a plurality its party favor as its presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, one of the nastiest, most egotistical and polarizing political figures of his day. 

Tom Tomorrow's latest comic provides the key "fun facts" about Newt.  The bottom line, as Laurence Lewis writes for Daily Kos and posted below:

Newt Gingrich Is A Lousy Human Being

By Laurence Lewis

Newt Gingrich is a lousy human being. Any assessment of his presidential aspirations has to begin with that. It's always worth considering what motivates a politician, particularly given all the personal complexities that attend a life lived in public, but with Newt Gingrich this is particularly relevant. We have had some very successful presidents whose personal lives were messy and complicated and we have had some terrible and even disastrous presidents whose personal lives seemed relatively stable, but it's rare that we have a president who is such a lousy human being and whose politics are no better. Newt Gingrich is a rare politician, but he won't be president. He is a rare politician because he is such a lousy human being and because his politics are so terrible. He won't be president precisely because he is such a lousy human being and because his politics are so terrible.

The politics of Newt Gingrich are obvious. Not only is he a cookie-cutter Republican champion of the 1 percent, he also is an enemy of the 99 percent. A typical Republican hypocrite on fiscal responsibility, he espouses a balanced budget but after voting for the policies of Reagan and the elder Bush that created the largest federal deficits in history, he then voted against the Bush tax increases that were meant to begin to address them. He then voted against the Clinton tax increases on the wealthy that helped balance the budget and spark the economic boom that created near full employment. And while opposing most of the best of President Clinton's policies, he supported President Clinton's worst policies. He now calls for possibly reinstating Glass-Steagall, but at the time he helped spearhead its repeal. And, of course, while opposing any restraints on the rapacious greed of the worst 1 percenters, he also opposes government programs that help those victimized by them. He proposed to privatize Social Security, which would have taken guaranteed income from the elderly and placed it in the hands of the same investment bankers who after being unfettered from Glass-Steagall crashed the economy; and with the economy still staggering from the Bush-Cheney economic meltdown, he is waging war on food stamps, while throwing in a racist dogwhistle at President Obama, just for good measure. He wants a Medicare voucher plan, which would take guaranteed health care from the elderly and place their medical security in the hands of those always benevolent private insurers. He wants to restructure the tax code, making the 1 percent even more disproportionately wealthy while adding even more to the federal deficit.


If it seems Newt Gingrich hates all things government, that's only part of the story. Because while he does oppose using the government to help those who most need help, he does seem to love its ability to enrich himself. In fact, lest anyone forget, Gingrich's long career in public office came to an ignominious end after he was caught using tax-exempt funds for overt political propagandizing, the wider investigation of which by the House Ethics Committee he obstructed by providing false information, the result of which was an enormously bipartisan House vote to make him the first Speaker of the House ever to be disciplined for ethical wrongdoing. And within a year, and just four years after leading the GOP to a House majority, he was so unpopular within his own caucus that he was forced to abandon his leadership, and soon his tenure in Congress. After which he went on to become a very well-paid non-lobbyist lobbyist. Newt Gingrich has never demonstrated any interest in helping make the world better for all, but he does love to make the world a better place for Newt Gingrich. Indeed, he seems to abide by a credo of asking not what he can do for his country but what his country can do for him. But that's not even the worst of it.

In my opinion, and speaking only for myself, it is a fundamental wrong to politicize politicians' personal lives. The private behavior of consenting adults is their business not ours. Even if they hypocritically attempt to politicize the personal behavior of others, theirs remains sacrosanct. That applies to Anthony Weiner and it applies to Sarah Palin. But when Newt Gingrich argued over a divorce with his first wife while she was lying in a hospital bed the day after her third surgery for cancer treatments, that was not the private behavior of consenting adults. Gingrich's first wife was not consenting to being so abused. Gingrich was demonstrating his utter disregard for what most people would consider a basic sense of humanity. As Robert Scheer wrote in 1994:

The man has chutzpah. In his 1974 campaign, he ran on the slogan, "Newt's family is like your family." A sad but perhaps accurate commentary on life in suburban Georgia. In 1978, he ran an ad blasting his opponent, Virginia Shapard, saying, "If elected, Virginia will move to Washington, but her husband and her children will remain in Griffin." Under Gingrich's photo, it said: "When elected, Newt will keep his family together." And he did, until he filed for divorce 16 months later. His wife told the court she wanted to stay married although she had "ample grounds" for divorce herself. But she complained bitterly that he failed to support the family. As her petition stated:
"Despite repeated notices . . . plaintiff has failed and refused to voluntarily provide reasonable support sufficient to include payment of usual and normal living expenses, including drugs, water, sewage, garbage, gas, electric and telephone service for defendant and the minor children. As a result, many of such accounts are two or three months past due with notices of intent to cut off service . . . . "

The man who led the Republican drive to punish the less fortunate by cutting off what was and is framed as coddling government services was then ordered by a judge to provide basic child and family support. And it's even worse. Because the same deadbeat dad who refused to take personal responsibility for his own children's "normal living expenses" would go on to promote a political plan for single moms and their children that was right out of the most dystopian Victorian nightmare. As recently referenced by digby:

In 1994, during the early days of the public debate on welfare reform, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich ignited a media firestorm by suggesting that orphanages are better for poor children than life with a mother on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Responding to blistering criticism, he first defended the proposal by invoking the idyllic orphanage life of the 1938 film "Boys Town," finally retreating, at least rhetorically, from the entire controversy. Orphanages became just another blip on the nation's radar screen, or so it seemed. In fact, the plan to revive orphanages is embedded in the Personal Responsibility Act, the Republican plan for welfare reform, and is a major piece of the Republican Contract With America. The Republicans' pledge promised to balance the budget, protect defense spending, and cut taxes, targeting programs for the poor--cash assistance, food, housing, medical, and child care--as the big areas for major budget savings. Parents who are poor, it has been predicted, will have little or no choice but to watch their children board the orphan trains in search of shelter and food.

Newt Gingrich seems to have a problem with children. His own children. The children of single teenaged moms. Poor children:

"It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid," said the former House speaker, according to CNN. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising." "You're going to see from me extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America," he added.

Change the culture of poverty? By punishing the poor? By punishing poor children? And of course, getting rid of unionized janitors undoubtedly would create even more poor children, because when you have a broken economy and chronic unemployment and you then start getting rid of some of the remaining well-paying jobs, you end up with more unemployed people. More people who were earning incomes and then suddenly aren't. Some of whom undoubtedly have children. Children who then will become poor. Poor children created by Gingrich's plan who then under Gingrich's plan would be forced to find work, and maybe even would end up getting their parents' old jobs. As non-unionized child labor janitors in their own schools.

Newt Gingrich personifies everything that is wrong with Washington. Even consummate DC Republican George Will can't contain his disdain:

Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive.

And it's astonishing that such a verity isn't even the worst. Newt Gingrich wants to wage political war on poor children. And it calls into question the values of anyone who would support Gingrich. Any Republican who supports Newt Gingrich cannot claim to support families, family values, or any recognizable form of morality. Should Gingrich's candidacy prevail in his party, it would prove once and for all that the much espoused Republican values are nothing but lies.

Newt Or Mitt? Both Shovelling The Same Sh**

They no doubt have different styles and lifestyles.  Gingrich is undisciplined and abrasive, recently compared by a Republican insider to "Bigfoot dressed as a circus clown."  Romney is more of a smooth operator, but when pushed, as he was recently in a FOX interview, he can be a "whiny rich corporate boss with a temper."  As for substance, however, there isn't much daylight between the two.  -- Lovechilde

Bill Scher, writing at Campaign for America's Future compares Gingrich's "Contract With America" plan and  Romney's "Believe In America" plan:

More Tax Cuts For The Rich
 
Both believe we should double down on President George W. Bush's jobs strategy: cut taxes for corporations and millionaires.

When Bush did it, it resulted in the worst jobs record on record.

Yet, Romney says, cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%. Gingrich goes farther, to 12.5%.

Romney says make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, and praises Bush by name in his plan. Gingrich opts to make an even deeper cut for the wealthy by proposing an "optional" flat tax of 15%, which every millionaire would obviously choose over the current top rate of 35%.

And both would eliminate the inheritance tax for multimillionaire heirs.

Fewer Rules On Corporate Behavior

Both appear to believe that one enormous financial crisis a generation isn't enough, as both propose completely scrapping President's Obama Wall Street reform law.

Both even go as far as to criticize's President Bush's lone attempt to regulate businesses, the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting regulation law which responded to the Enron scandal -- Romney would partially repeal it to exempt "mid-size" businesses, and Gingrich would totally repeal it.

Romney proposes a "cap" on the cost of new regulations with no suggestion he would factor in the related benefits of any regulations, monetary or otherwise.

Both propose drastically scaling back environmental protections. Both propose loosening rules regarding oil drilling, as if the BP disaster never happened. (Romney briefly references the spill as merely something that happened which "provided political cover" for Obama's energy policy.)

Romney calls the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts "anachronisms" and calls the President's goal to create millions of jobs producing clean energy as an "unhealthy obsession." Gingrich proposes abolishing the EPA altogether, and replacing it with an "Environmental Solutions Agency" with little to no power to implement solutions.

Romney would change the Clean Air Act so the EPA would no longer have the power to address climate change. Gingrich wouldn't have an EPA anymore, which would achieve the same goal.

Of course, both used to be supporters of a cap-and-trade system to cut carbon emissions, but no longer.


Turn Back The Clock On Health Care

Both trash President Obama's deficit cutting Affordable Care Act. Both pledge to repeal it. Both promise to "replace" it with something that can similarly provide health insurance for everybody, but don't bother much with explaining how that something would actually work.

Gingrich says in the answer lies in "patient power and localism." Romney says he will "return power to the states." Neither bother to note that the Affordable Care Act gives states wide flexibility to set up their own systems, so long as they cut costs and expand coverage.

Instead, they tout purchasing insurance across state lines, which without any regulatory standards, merely sets up a race to the bottom. Both also back the idea of a tax credit to buy your own insurance, never mentioning that all such ideas have shown to not provide enough money to afford what's on the market.

Of course, both used to be supporters of an individual mandate to purchase private health insurance -- the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act -- but no longer.

Undermine Retirement Security

Gingrich continues to flog partial privatization for Medicare and Social Security. Romney suggests he supports partial privatization of Medicare, saying his plan "will share those objectives" of the plan passed by the Republican House earlier this year, but holds back on the details. On Social Security, he does not indicate support for privatization, just for benefit cuts, while also rejecting any increase in the regressive payroll tax on the wealthy.

Unleash Fiscal Insanity

Both back the ludicrous Balanced Budget Amendment which would make it impossible for the federal government to respond to financial crises and prevent Great Depressions, as we just successfully did with President Obama's Recovery Act.

***

So why are Republican primary voters agonizing over this choice?

Both propose a radical right-wing vision for the country.

Both have showed their political insincerity and expediency by once backing conservatives ideas intended to actually try to solve problems, only to abandon them once Democrats adopted them in the spirit of compromise, and they no longer were en vogue among conservative opinion leaders. (If they wanted consistency, well, they got Rick Santorum. So I guess they don't.)

Today, Romney seems to be the choice of much of the Republican establishment. Why? Style. They fear Gingrich's propensity to say ridiculous things could destroy the party's reputation for years.

Today, Gingrich appears to be the choice of many hard-core conservatives. Why? Style. Gingrich sounds like a bigger obnoxious blowhard. Ergo, he must be the real conservative.

But for the rest of us outside of the conservative fever swamps, know that they both offer the same swill that made us all sick in the last decade.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

By Fuzzyone

Newt Gingrich was never a lobbyist. He just expressed his opinion like any other citizen and like any other citizen he was paid millions of dollars for it.

Has It Really Come Down To Newt?

Fair and Unbalanced hasn't spent a whole lot of time on the bizarre and pathetic collection of Republican hopefuls.  The attention given to the pointless, if entertaining, campaigns of Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain says far more about the sorry state of the GOP and the low level of discourse in the media than it does about the inane and perhaps insane candidates.  I've written about Rick Perry because his decisions as Texas governor, especially his cavalier attitude about the death penalty and how it resonates with Republicans, have real world significance.  But what Rick Santorum thinks about anything is not worth thinking about, much less writing about.

But now it is being reported that Newt Gingrich, by process of elimination, has "bumped up" in the polls, and I feel compelled to speak out.   How is it that a majority of a supposedly mainstream political party can support Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich or Michele Bachmann? 

Today let's focus on Newton Leroy Gingrich.  Gingrich was charged with 84 ethics violations when he was Speaker of the House, and disciplined for one of them.  He resigned as Speaker in disgrace after his leadership was held responsible for unprecedented Republican losses in the 1998 mid-term election.

Gingrich, a social conservative, has been married three times.  He was having an affair during his first marriage and he went to the hospital where his wife was recovering from the surgical removal of a tumor to discuss the terms of divorce.  There are recent reports that he bought his current wife $1 million worth of jewelry to assuage her objections to his presidential run.   

Gingrich is an abrasive, polarizing figure.  He blamed the 1999 Columbine shootings on "the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite."  Same with Virginia Tech.  As Think Progress reminds us Gingrich blamed the residents of New Orleans’ 9th ward for “a failure of citizenship,” by being “so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn’t get out of the way of a hurricane.”  He has called President Obama a “secular socialist” and described Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was acting “in the spirit of Soviet tyranny.”

And have I mentioned his love for Abba, and that he has Dancing Queen as his ringtone?