For the GOP, the choice is simple and fundamental. Does the party want to nominate someone who has an extensive record of achievement in Washington and great ideas about how to fix the country, or a cutthroat ex-governor who can win only by destroying his closest competitor?
Of all the nomination contests to date, South Carolina was the most revealing for a broad host of reasons. Newt Gingrich’s win there was so overwhelming it tells the tale of a race that if based on the comparison of ideas and plans to fix the country, would carry Newt right into the White House. But the strategy is clearly different for ex-governor Mitt Romney. For him the path to victory isn’t producing better ideas. He wins by destroying the competition.
But South Carolina also demonstrates that Newt is the man with a plan in a bipartisan way, and Romney’s, well, not so much. In fact, clearly without carpet-bombing Gingrich with lie-saturated ads, he loses and loses big. Do we really want a nominee who can win only with negative ads? I think not.
In fact, what Romney doesn’t want known is the support he got from George Soros. The latter told Reuters during a recent interview that Romney and Obama aren’t all that different. That’s a pretty damning assessment about an allegedly conservative candidate. If Soros based that on comparing the economic plans of Romney and Obama, it’s most disheartening, indeed.
Despite the vitriol, Newt Gingrich is a double Phoenix. Such notable and much admired analysts as Charles Krauthammer, Juan Williams, Brit Hume and others have cast Newt’s campaign on the scrapheap of campaigns lost, not once, but twice, and been wrong both times. That says a lot about a candidate with a passion for making the futures of his grandchildren and all others opportunity plentiful. And that’s why he’s in the race.
For Romney, the presidency is another jewel in his already bejeweled crown, a goal to be achieved and another turnaround opportunity to be had, a reminder of his halcyon days at Bain Capital. He, too, is passionate, but the way he’s conducted his campaign so far is positively Nixonian. Destroy Newt Gingrich, then go all the way.
Campaigns should be about what each candidate brings to the party not resolving differences with nasty TV ads. We as voters should be comparing ideas, not trying to tune out impossibly filthy ads from both sides, although far more from Romney because he has the money.
When Gingrich first rose from the ashes of a disastrous start, he expressed his ideas and he soared in the polls. Romney, unable to match him idea for idea, fired the first daisy cutter bombs in Iowa to knock Newt out. He almost succeeded, but Newt carried on. His first mistake, however, was to try to remain positive and not hurl bombs back to defend himself. When Romney increased his attacks, Gingrich faced a stark choice: get out of the race or start fighting back. His choice was obviously the latter, but it was already too late.
He fought back valiantly, although admittedly, some of his ads were not always honest, but Romney’s PAC, behind which he hides, just keeps on attacking. Newt hasn’t the money to put up a real defense, and that’s why the pundits put him back on the ash heap. While remaining ahead in the national polls, Newt lost in Iowa and then in New Hampshire, a state in which Romney had campaigned for six years solid.
When Newt rose again and flew into South Carolina, Romney’s New Hampshire momentum and S.C. Governor Nikki Haley’s endorsement made him confident enough to cease firing. He figured he’d put Newt down for good in Iowa. The two debated and exchanged their ideas and Newt trounced the ex-governor in ways historic.
Romney later blamed his loss not on the preponderance of Newt’s superior ideas and debate performances, but for not launching more crushing attacks.
What we learned the most from that amazing primary was that Romney can’t match what Newt is proposing and he can’t beat him unless he “crucifies him,” to borrow Sarah Palin’s words.
When you wipe away the ads and compare the plans Newt’s is in every way the better. He’s a far the better debater than is Romney, and would be an able combatant against the Obama juggernaut. He has plans to ask Congress to repeal most of Obama’s wretched laws three weeks before the inauguration. On his first day in office, he’d sign the repeals and send out a flurry of executive orders to disassemble all things Obama, including his czars.
Does the ex-speaker have some warts in his past, you bet, and Romney has blasted home every one. But since his days as speaker, Newt has evolved. He got religion and atoned for his sins and foibles. As any true Christian can attest, when someone turns to God and genuinely seeks forgiveness and redemption, he or she becomes a new person, someone with a very different outlook on life. Converts tend to mellow and leave behind raw and reckless ambitions, wicked thoughts and actions.
Is he perfect? Of course not, but neither is Romney. In fact, while Newt was found guilty of only one of eighty-four ethics violations and cleared of the rest, he didn’t break the law. The one violation that stuck was due to an error made by his pricy lawyer. He paid no fine, but rather the cost of the investigation. That is the truth not according to Romney.
In contrast, from 1989 to 1993, Mitt Romney sat on the board of and managed Damon Corporation, which defrauded Medicare out of $25 million under his watch. That he wasn’t charged with fraud smacks of obstruction of justice at the hands of some powerful cronies. When Bain Capital sold the company to Corning, the latter discovered the fraud, exposed it and the company paid a $119 million penalty. Then, like too many other companies touched by Bain Capital, it wound up bankrupt a few years later.
Through his attacks, Romney is desperately trying to convince voters than he and only he can beat Barack Obama. While some voters are panicking and buying the ruse, it’s just that, a ruse.
According to analyst Dick Morris in his latest newsletter, “Either man [Romney or Newt] —or even Santorum for that matter —could and would defeat Obama in November. The basic Party shift (minus 8 for Dems and plus 3 for Republicans) pre-ordains Obama's defeat. Voters should not hesitate to support the nominee they want for fear that Obama might win.”
The basic question for the Republican Party is does it want someone who can focus well on the economy, but who can beat competitors only by causing their destruction. Or does it want someone who’s well rounded, highly knowledgeable, been in the thick of the battle, won spectacular victories against the odds, done amazing things with a Democrat president, and who truly understands the burdens borne by the weight of the office? I suggest the latter.
In the final analysis voters need to answer this question: Do they want someone who can unite the base, reach across the aisle and unclog the logjam in Congress, or does it want a bully who can win the nomination only by beating his closest competitor with ruthless and disingenuous ads? Romney is far too Nixonian for my taste, a man with a rich and virulent mean streak who has the gall to deny he knows the content of a fallacious ad which ended with he himself saying, “I’m Mitt Romney, and I approved this ad.”
His arrogance is palpable, his past well left of center and his fortune emblematic of the growing chasm between rich and poor that Obama has made the main plank in his platform. Newt is a grass roots genius who talks the talk and walks the walk and hasn’t a liberal bone in his body. It’s time for a man of the people to take the reins of power, not another patrician.
