Newt Gingrich

A really effective new ad from Newt Gingrich's Super PAC: 

Ted Kennedy's campaign made similar arguments in his 1994 campaign against Mitt Romney. Here are a few ads from Kennedy ...

Absentee ballots are now available for Missouri's February 7th presidential primary election. But, there are three very important things you should know about the Show-Me-State's primary next year. 

1) Newt Gingrich will not be on the ballot

2) "Show Me the Pizza" Man Herman Cain will be on the ballot, along with Gary Johnson, although the latter is about to switch to the Libertarians and the former is no longer running for President

3) Oh yeah - the primary won't matter at all, so you can write-in the banana from "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!"  if you want, and it really wouldn't make much difference. 

Sen. Jim Lembke (R-Lemay) shared the following thoughts on Newt Gingrich with  adoring Facebook fans today: 

Listening to Beck on the way into the office. He had a dozen or so quotes from Newt saying that FDR was the greatest president of the modern era. If I didn't hear it with my own ears, it would have been hard to believe. I have said Newt is always the smartest guy in the room, but they may have said the same thing about Hamilton.(when Jefferson was absent) Turns out Newt is a progressive Hamiltonian and cannot be trusted with the reigns [sic] of our republic. Don't make a false choice, Choose LIBERTY!!!

Emphasis added. 

Obviously, few things are more damning in modern politics than alleging that a man is a 'progressive Hamiltonian.' 

You're a mean one, Newt GinGrinch!

No, the title of this post is not a typo.  From our friends over at Think Progress, there's this:

Last week, GOP presidential primary candidate Newt Gingrich appeared at Harvard to talk about his campaign. At the conclusion of his speech, he fielded questions from students that were recorded and uploaded to YouTube. One student asked the former House speaker about the pay gap between men and women. Gingrich completely dismissed this gap.

Yes, you read that right.  Gingrich is more concerned with men facing pay inequity.  In fact, here's exactly what he said:

[I]f anything, you’ll be here in fifteen years wondering what we’ll do about men inequality and male unemployment.

Courtesy of Progress Women, we've got these stats for Mr. Gingrich if he ever decides to address pay equity issues in Missouri, where we're no where close to seeing equity for women as they see only 75¢ for every dollar earned by a full-time male worker, essentially making $616/week to the $819/week of their male colleagues.  To add insult to injury, the gap in Missouri is 6% greater than the average gap across the United States and is larger than the wage gap our neighboring states.

Mr. Gingrich, I'll eat my hat if I'm wondering about pay inequality for men in 15 years.

Photo: flickr

Newt Gingrich has been known to say the word "fundamental." Perhaps his fundamentals are resonating with the American people and explains why he has been leading in the polls recently. Too bad he fundamentally didn't file for the Presidential Primary in Missouri. 

It looks like when Newt isn't advocating for children to work as janitors in schools or having extramarital problems, he's exploring new ways to use the word "fundamental". It's really quite the impressive list.

New York Magazine has recently commented on the broad range of topics on which Newt has successfully implemented the word "fundamental" or "fundamentally", such as the NLRB, prisons, the exploitation of brain science, philosophy, and even trickle-down bureaucracy.

"fundamentally reshape the NLRB"..."fundamentally rethink prisons"..."fundamentally rethink how we exploit brain science across the board"..."fundamental philosophical basis for America"..."fundamentally wrong because trickle-down bureaucracy doesn't work"...

Read cover  NY Mag.

The deadline for filing for Missouri's Presidential Primary was today and Newt Gingrich failed to toss his name in the hat:

Just exactly how serious is Newt about running for office if he can't even get his campaign paperwork together to stick his name on the ballot?  And he wants to be president?!

Temporary frontrunner "I am not a lobbyist" Newt Gingrich told a group at Harvard today that our child labor laws are archaic. He proposes firing union school janitors and hiring students to do those chores. Not sure if he starts in elementary school, middle school, or junior high. And no, Miss Liberty doesn't know if he has Jane Cunningham on speed dial, or if he has offered her the Number Two spot.

Roy Blunt defended the Paul Ryan budget proposal this morning that would eliminate Medicare as we know it, saying the plan is "not extreme at all."

"It's one of many ideas we should be looking at, Blunt said." Watch:

No one could have predicted that the House GOP's plan to phase out Medicare as we know it while giving the very wealthy even more tax cuts would be unpopular: "Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich distanced himself on Sunday from a House GOP plan to make cuts to Medicare, calling it 'too big a jump' for the American people."

From Meet the Press:

Newt Gingrich found himself on the wrong side of reality and a lot of oppo dumps last week.

Including in the mix: one of Newt's companies has been hit with multiple tax liens in Missouri, and paid them off only recently.

Yesterday's Public Policy Polling survey shows that Barry Soetoro trails all leading Republican contenders in Missouri in hypothetical 2012 matchups except Sarah Palin. Respondents were also asked about Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.  According to the pollsters' analysis, "Huckabee is the only one of the Republicans Missouri voters are particularly fond of."  From their release:

Huckabee is by far the best liked of the four Republicans, with a 51-29 favorability rating to Romney’s 30-42, Gingrich’s 33-48, and Palin’s 39-53. Huckabee performs better across the board. 25% of Democrats like him, with Romney’s 13% a distant second across the aisle. He also has a 46-27 mark with independents, with Romney’s 26-39 way behind. Romney’s problem is Republicans, who give him only a 49-24, last by far, with Huckabee’s 79-11 the best grade with the GOP.

“These results continue the trend seen nationally and in North Carolina, Virginia, and Montana: Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are right now the president’s strongest potential opponents, with Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich placing no better or even sometimes far worse than John McCain did in Obama’s decisive 2008 victory,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.

Other notes:

• Only 39% of respondents had a favorable opinion of Palin, and 53% have an unfavorable opinion.   Huckabee is at 51/29, Gingrich is at 33/48, Romney is at 30/42, and Obama is at 43-52. 
• "Obama gets 86-88% of the Democratic vote in all four match ups. He definitely doesn't have a base problem."
• One third of Missourians like Newt Gingrich? Newt Freaking Gingrich, people.

Yesterday, #PeterTheTweeter promoted a disgusting article in Forbes, attaching his initials to a message from Newt Gingrich about "Dinesh D'Souza's excellent article."

What is this "excellent article" to which Peter Kinder is attaching his reputation? Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review sums it up pretty well.

So it’s come to this: Forbes cover story on “How Obama Thinks” is a gross piece of innuendo—a fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia. This is the worst kind of smear journalism—a singularly disgusting work.

Forbes for some reason gives Dinesh D’Souza the cover and lots of space to froth about the notion popular in the right-wing fever swamps that Obama is an “other”; that he doesn’t think like “an American,” that his actions benefit foreigners rather than Amurricans. It’s too kind to call this innuendo. It’s far too overt for that...

Forbes has shamed itself with this one.

"Michael Steele makes a number of old-time Republicans very nervous. He comes out of a different background. He went to seminary ... he's African-American ... But I think he's pretty close to what we need. He's different, he's gutsy and he's going to make a number of Republicans mad."

~Newt Gingrich, today

Just days before former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich travels to Cape Girardeau to talk health care with Howard Dean, Gingrich acknowledged to ABC News Radio that his party's leaders are not putting forward the substantive alternative proposals they promised they would [emphasis added]:

With an ABCNews/Washington Post poll this week painting a dismal picture for the country’s opposition party, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blamed his fellow Republicans for their own sorry state.

"They’re not consistently, methodically, offering positive alternatives," Gingrich said Tuesday in an interview with ABC News Radio.

Only 19 percent of those polled said they had confidence in congressional Republicans to "make the right decisions for the country’s future."  Just 20 percent in the survey identified themselves as Republicans – a low in ABC-Post polls dating to 1983 – continuing a precipitous decline in Republican self-identification that began in 2004.

Sadly, my wife and I will be unable to scrounge up the $100,400 required to attend this event.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich will be back in town next week for a major fundraising event to help a former Republican colleague, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, who's now running for the U.S. Senate next year.

The Ladue event -- at the Hunter Farms estate of Stephen and Kimmy Brauer -- includes a private reception that seeks $100,400 per couple.

        When Republicans were asked who they considered to be the leader of the Grand Old Party, most responded, “Duh?” In a recent Gallup poll, nearly a third of Republicans say they look to Rush (10%), Newt (10%) and Cheney (9%) as the party spokesperson.

        These three rich, old white guys make Sarah Palin look like Mary Poppins. But poor Sarah, along with Rev. Huckabee, only polled enough votes to be lumped into the category of “Others,” while Mittens registered a mere 2% despite his heavy spending in the last presidential contest.

        As the poll confirms, consensus is scarcer than hens’ teeth in GOP circles. Moderates in the party—their wings severely clipped—are feeble and frustrated. Meanwhile, those on the right are beating their chests, chattering breathlessly, swinging from the trees, throwing coconuts hither and yon, and wreaking havoc wherever there is opportunity.