Go Back   CityProfile.com Forum - Local City and State Discussion Forums > General Discussion > National Politics / Debate
Click Here to Login

Reply
Old 05-10-2011, 08:08 PM  
mohel
 
blucher's Avatar

Keizer, OR
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 4,365 | Kudos: +124
Images: 99
Potential President, or Skilled Showman?

HTML Code:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2058097,00.html
Newt Gingrich: Potential President, or Skilled Showman?

By Michael Crowley Thursday, Mar. 31, 2011


Quote:
Newt Gingrich was barely through the door of the Point of Grace Church in a Des Moines, Iowa, suburb when a man stopped him and thrust out his hand. "We need you," he said. The former House Speaker, television pundit and GOP idea maven flashed his medium-warm grin, said thank you and then turned to meet a throng of admirers gathering around him. For many of the attendees at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition's annual spring kickoff on March 7, Gingrich was as much celebrity as candidate, and it seemed an open question whether people there wanted Gingrich as President ? or just a high-profile agitator.
"We watch you on Fox all the time!" exclaimed one well-wisher, referring to Gingrich's appearances on the cable network, which lately have featured grandiose claims about America's descent into Barack Obama-imposed socialism. A couple, Tom and Karen Quiner, stopped Gingrich to rhapsodize about a made-for-DVD film he recently produced that describes Pope John Paul II's role in the fall of Communism. "We've been passing around your video," Karen told Gingrich. "It was so moving."


Such encounters offer a glimpse of the appeal in conservative circles of the multimillion-dollar, multimedia empire Gingrich has created in the 12 years since he left office under less-than-ideal circumstances (affair, divorce, scorn from his colleagues). His content machine cranks out books, DVD movies, paid speeches, television appearances, grass-roots organizing work. Along the way, this output has made Gingrich a wealthy man. And now he may be about to set it all aside to pursue a long-burning ambition of becoming President, a goal many people consider about as plausible as some of Gingrich's other designs, like his 1995 vision for a "massive new program to build a lunar colony." Gingrich has reportedly told supporters he's leaning toward an early-April announcement of his candidacy.
It won't be an easy one. He has always operated on a Wagnerian scale, and there's little doubt he feels qualified to lead the U.S. through what he awkwardly calls "a crossroads that we cannot hide from." Yet he is also one of the most divisive figures in politics. Though he may have high name recognition, he is disliked by roughly half of those who are familiar with him ? a stigma matched within the GOP only by Sarah Palin. He has a flair for hyperbole that seems antithetical to executing a well-disciplined national campaign. And he has a personal life for which he says he has sought God's forgiveness. "He's one of the most creative thinkers out there," says Tom Quiner. Quiner's wife agrees but then pauses. "I don't know," she says. "He's got some baggage."


Indeed he does. It's unclear whether that baggage is too heavy for a journey to the White House ? and whether Gingrich, 67, is really serious about running in the first place. But as he took the podium at the Point of Grace Church before an enthusiastic audience of perhaps 1,500, Gingrich was in his element. The former history professor declaimed about the fate of the Republic in a speech that ranged from Abraham Lincoln to Cold War-era Poland and even Albert Camus, as he outlined a battle with Obama and the "secular, socialist left." "We need a political change so deep and so profound," Gingrich told the crowd, "that nothing we have seen in our lifetime is comparable."
We've been down this road with Gingrich before. He has hinted at his presidential ambitions in nearly every election since he rose from the Atlanta suburbs to national fame in 1994 by leading the Republicans' reclamation of the House of Representatives after 40 years of Democratic rule. Most recently, in late 2007, Gingrich announced a "feasibility assessment" of his prospects for the 2008 campaign but then concluded it would be "irresponsible" to leave his just-founded nonprofit activist group, American Solutions for Winning the Future.


The serial flirting, coupled with Gingrich's nonstop product output (he has written more than 20 books since 1994, including three that were published in the past year alone), fuels suspicion that he's more profiteer than candidate. "We've heard this before," says one veteran presidential-campaign operative who advises a potential rival. "I'll believe it when I see it." It doesn't help that Gingrich himself has alluded to the benefits that accrue to those who are discussed as possible Presidents. "It helps sell books," he admitted to the Des Moines Register in 2005. "It helps communicate ideas. It helps get attention."
Gingrich's aides insist that this time is different. His spokesman, Rick Tyler, argues that in past cycles Gingrich hadn't severed financial or business ties ? whereas this month his contract was suspended by Fox News, and he stepped down from a position at the American Enterprise Institute. "Those are two very solid indications of seriousness," Tyler says. Adds Ralph Reed, a longtime Evangelical Christian operative who has known Gingrich for decades: "I think he'll get in."
Further evidence of Gingrich's seriousness is the spadework he's doing with Reed's fellow religious-conservative activists. Next month, Gingrich will speak at the San Antonio megachurch of Evangelical pastor John Hagee. Later this month he will return to Iowa to promote another DVD movie, Rediscovering God in America, which he produced with his wife Callista and which highlights the role of faith in America's heritage.

Reviwer;

Barry Wegman
Gingrich is neither a potential president nor skilled showman. He doesn't have a chance running for the office and his moral lapses, including dumping his wife while she was in the hospital with cancer and a host of infidelity issues, conflict with his persona making him anything but a credible showman.

His time had past and he's a sideshow now.
Potential President, or Skilled Showman?-wnewt_0321.jpg 

__________________

__________________
I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
Reply With Quote
Old 05-10-2011, 08:11 PM  
Traveler

Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,450 | Kudos: +43
Don't put anything past anybody!
__________________

Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 01:45 AM  
Senior Member
 
Jake7's Avatar

Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,294 | Kudos: +135
Images: 45
Hah man when I read the title of this thread, I thought for sure it was about Obama!

You know, Hitler was a great public speaker, too!
__________________
Discover Scentsy at Lucky Lucy Scentsy Products - an independent Scentsy consultant!


https://luckylucy.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Buy
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 02:44 AM  
island girl
 
juliana's Avatar

Chicago, IL
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 176 | Kudos: +21
Images: 3
I thought it was going to be about Trump...
__________________
"It's not the size of the lift, it's the articulation!" - Lil ED
:: Off Road North America ::
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 10:18 AM  
Traveler

Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,450 | Kudos: +43
I'd lump them all in the same group.
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 04:09 PM  
Senior Member

Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 148 | Kudos: +11
Regarding Gingrich?

Or why thieves and liars shouldn?t go into politics:

The land of old Prussia, the region surrounding Berlin, Germany, is notoriously worthless for agricultural purposes. By the early 1930s many of the Junker nobles, who owned large estates in the region, were bankrupt. The Reichstag had prepared a secret report detailing the Osthilfe, a program whereby the government would make loans to the bankrupt Junkers with no intention of ever collecting repayment.

On the night of January 22, 1933 Adolf Hitler meet privately with Oskar von Hindenburg, the son of German President Paul von Hindenburg. No record was made of what transpired at this private meeting; only Hitler and Oskar von Hindenburg were present and only they knew with certainty what was said and agreed to.

However, following World War I the Junkers had gotten together and gave Paul von Hindenburg an estate in Neudeck, thus making him a Junker. But, the land had been illegally deeded to Oskar so the Hindenburgs could avoid paying inheritance taxes when the elder Hindenburg died. Speculation is that Hitler threatened to make public the details of the Osthilfe scandal as well as the Hindenburgs tax dodge. Several months after Hitler was named Chancellor 5000 acres were added tax-free to the Hindenburg estate and in August 1934 Oskar was raised from colonel to major general in the German army.

Thus the final maneuvers that gave Adolf Hitler the Chancellorship of the Weimar Republic, and set the world on the road to the Holocaust and the most destructive war in history, may have centered around government corruption and the poor moral character of the people who had government power. This should be a lesson to everyone who believes that a politician?s personal character is of no importance as long they can perform their government job effectively. Never again should a politician like Bill Clinton or anyone that may come after him be given a pass simply because his moral corruption is supposedly confined to his private life.
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 04:42 PM  
mohel
 
blucher's Avatar

Keizer, OR
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 4,365 | Kudos: +124
Images: 99
That BJ really smarts huh?

I welcome Newt to the Magical World of Weepublican Wannabees. Over 50% of voters are female and few will vote for a husband who abandons a wife in a time of grave illness.
Potential President, or Skilled Showman?-newt-not.jpg 

__________________
I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes one.: LBJ's Ghost
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 06:16 PM  
Senior Member

Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 148 | Kudos: +11
Quote:
Originally Posted by blucher View Post
That BJ really smarts huh?

I welcome Newt to the Magical World of Weepublican Wannabees. Over 50% of voters are female and few will vote for a husband who abandons a wife in a time of grave illness.
Not really.

50% of the 50% that are women are like Elizabeth Edwards- willing to put up with the SOB for far too long.
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 06:42 PM  
Senior Member
 
Jake7's Avatar

Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,294 | Kudos: +135
Images: 45
Wow, there seems to be an abundance of Newt-bashing threads in here lately. Can't we just consolidate into one? As interesting as it is...
__________________
Discover Scentsy at Lucky Lucy Scentsy Products - an independent Scentsy consultant!


https://luckylucy.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Buy
Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2011, 07:06 PM  
Senior Member

Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 148 | Kudos: +11
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake7 View Post
Wow, there seems to be an abundance of Newt-bashing threads in here lately. Can't we just consolidate into one? As interesting as it is...
I started a separate thread because what I said goes beyond Gingrich. He's not the first bag of pond scum to seek the highest office in the Free World. Unfortunately too many Americans are too much like him for him to be the last.
__________________

Reply With Quote
Reply

Go Back   CityProfile.com Forum - Local City and State Discussion Forums > General Discussion > National Politics / Debate
Bookmark this Page!

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes


Suggested Threads

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.