I don't have a dog in this fight, but...

[TheMercenary]

The whole story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?...ain;contentAux

[Spexxvet]

[BigV]

No taxes on capital gains? No taxes on dividends?

Holy crap! So the only thing that would be taxed is labor? Salary and wages from labor. I can see very clearly who Rick Perry thinks should fund the public goods and services provided by the federal government. And more importantly who he thinks should be exempt from paying any share at all.

[classicman]

Perry has been reduced to a non-relevant status.

[Lamplighter]

Suddenly, Cain is crashing and Gingrich has climbed to the top tier of GOP candidates.
It must be time to review the political history of a man who is almost a phenomenon.
The talking heads are sure Newt will not be the GOP nominee:

John Nichols on May 12, 2011 - 7:53am ET

Five Reasons Why Republicans Are Never Ever Going to Nominate Newt Gingrich

So Newt Gingrich has finally gotten around to mounting the race
for the Oval Office he has coveted for the better part of two decades.
<snip>
On message. According to plan. Yes, that's Newt Gingrich. Cool.
Let’s consider the top-five reasons:

1. GINGRICH REACHED HIS SELL-BY DATE IN 1996:
Born during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's third term,
Gingrich would if elected next year assume the presidency on the cusp of his 70th birthday.
And unlike the conservative movement's favorite septuagenarian president, Ronald Reagan,
Gingrich has been a political player for his entire adult life.
Barack Obama was two years old when Gingrich went to work on his first national campaign.

There are natural trajectories for politicians. Gingrich's had him running for president in 1996,
as the dynamic conservative challenger to President Bill Clinton.
That would have been a great race between a pair of similar southerners
-- smart, ambitious rascals with plenty of skeletons in their closets
but also with real differences regarding the direction of the nation
-- but Gingrich deferred to the party bosses (and their corporate overseers)
who preferred the predictability of Bob Dole.

Gingrich blinked. He missed his chance.
The same thing happened to Mario Cuomo, who should have run in 1992.
But at least Cuomo didn’t try to run in 2008.

2. GINGRICH IS A QUITTER:
Stop making fun of Sarah Palin. Sure, she quit in the middle
of her term as governor of Alaska, which was kind of pathetic.
But Gingrich quit as Speaker of the House on the eve of the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Talk about “seduced and abandoned.”
He set his fellow Republicans up for a fool’s mission, then he exited stage right.
But the real reason was that his fellow Republicans had lost faith with him as a leader.
That was a smart choice, rooted in actual experience and sincere concern
about trusting the future of their party to a Gingrich.
Why would Republicans abandon it now.

3. GINGRICH GOT HISTORY A “ROCKEFELLER REPUBLICAN”:
He could have signed on with the “Draft Ronald Reagan” campaign of that year.
That's what a visionary conservative would have done.
He could have worked for Richard Nixon.
That's what a cautious Republican careerist would have done.

But no! Gingrich served as the southern regional coordinator for the campaign of
New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the most liberal Republican in the field

4. GINGRICH KEEPS GOING GREEN ON US:
Environmentalist? Appealing to "liberal Democrats"?
That was the old Newt Gingrich. He's a conservative now.

Well, er, um, he did appear three years ago with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
in an ad for Al Gore's Repower American Campaign, an ad that saw Gingrich declare that,
while he and the liberal Democrat did not agree on many issues,
"we do agree our country must take action to address climate change."

5. GINGRICH CAME UP WITH THE LAMEST EXCUSE EVER FOR CHEATING ON HIS SEVERAL WIVES:

You see, it was patriotism -- the love of the country, not the love of the ladies -- that led him to stray.

And besides all that:

This past week Newt Gingrich climbed nearer the top of GOP presidential polls,
but many pundits insist that the former House speaker has
too many skeletons in his closet to bag the nomination.

The Week
November 16, 2011

1. He has too many skeletons in his closet
2. Gingrich doesn't have enough cash to compete
3. Newt would never beat Obama
4. Gingrich simply isn't likable
5. He's too moderate for today's GOP
6. The non-Romneys always fade

While most of these are debatable, # 4 is the over-riding issue

"Voters came to know him 20 years ago and they hated him."
And today, "the more people get to know him, the less they like him."
It's obvious why, Newt is mean. says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.
He spends much of the debates scolding the moderators.
Really, "his emotional center of gravity is contemptuous disdain."

[classicman]

says "some tool" at Talking Points Memo.

meh - you went with TPM to get a shitty quote from some partisan hack.
For that, I am going to post 5 links to some BS from Faux snooze and you can't bitch about it.

[Lamplighter]

@classic ??? the "Newt is mean" quote comes from The Week, in it's link embedded above.

Have I committed a faux pas ?

[Griff]

?

[Lamplighter]

That looks a like that cat named bob.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

meh - you went with TPM to get a shitty quote from some partisan hack.
For that, I am going to post 5 links to some BS from Faux snooze and you can't bitch about it.

I'll see your 5 links, and raise you 10 links to The Communist Manifesto, Comrade.

[classicman]

but but but your quote is:

"It's obvious why, Newt is mean. says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. "

... ahhh just found it -

"Voters came to know him 20 years ago and they hated him."
And today, "the more people get to know him, the less they like him."
It's obvious why, says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Newt is mean.
He spends much of the debates scolding the moderators.
Really, "his emotional center of gravity is contemptuous disdain."

sorry, let me rephrase ... they went with some partisan hack from TPM to get a shitty quote .
My deepest apologies, Sir Lamp.

[classicman]

In all seriousness, Newt is another waste of time - fodder for the papers.
Does anyone really think he will get the nod?

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by classicman

In all seriousness, Newt is another waste of time - fodder for the papers.
Does anyone really think he will get the nod?

Well, maybe not the "nod".
I'm expecting the GOP to winnow down to two: Romney and not-Romney,
and Newt has may seem more electable to moderates... until the run-off.
.

[Spexxvet]

The republicans have a problem. Anyone who is moderate enough to win the general election is not conservative enough to win the primary.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

The republicans have a problem. Anyone who is moderate enough to win the general election is not conservative enough to win the primary.

This is Romney's curse and his blessing.

He is deliberately (or perhaps genuinely and honestly) keeping the distance between his primary posture and his general posture as short as possible. This will make him MORE electable in the general election. Electable enough to defeat Obama? I don't think so, but there's a LOT of campaigning ahead of us