LOL @ Newt Gingrich

[Curt James]

"Nobody, frankly, other than Newt has ever believed that he was a viable candidate in this process."
—Rich Galen, former Gingrich aide

YouTube Video

Gingrich abandoned by campaign team

Jane Cowan reported this story on Friday, June 10, 2011

Transcript:

EMILY BOURKE: In the United States the presidential campaign of the former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich appears to have self-combusted.

Only weeks after the launch key members of his team have abruptly resigned en masse.

North America correspondent Jane Cowan reports.

JANE COWAN: They're calling it a Newtiny. It's the latest disaster to befall the Gingrich campaign.

In a mass exodus five of the former House speaker's top aides including the campaign manager, two senior strategists and two consultants have suddenly jumped ship.

Political observers like the Republican strategist John Feehery say it's game over.

JOHN FEEHERY: I think Newt is done. I don't think he can come back from this. He is not really a staff driven person so he doesn't need staff but you need a few staffers.

JANE COWAN: Gingrich's campaign had been rocky from the start after he was forced to apologise for criticising his own party's healthcare policy.

Paul Begala is a Democratic political consultant.

PAUL BEGALA: Terrible blow to Newt. What I take away from this is how, Newt is one of the smartest people in American politics. I don't agree with his ideas, okay but he is a smart guy.

And I think the beginning of the end for him seemed to be when he took the position at the Paul Ryan budget which essentially ends Medicare in the words of the Wall Street Journal, was not a good idea. When he criticised that plan to essentially end Medicare it essentially ended his campaign.

JANE COWAN: Another memorable moment in the short campaign saw reporters leap on the embarrassing revelation that Newt Gingrich had racked up a half a million dollar bill at the luxury jewellery store Tiffany's.

REPORTER: Did you owe a half a million dollars to a jewellery company at one point?

NEWT GINGRICH: We had a revolving fund.

REPORTER: Well what does that mean?

NEWT GINGRICH: It means that we had a revolving fund. It was an interest free account.

REPORTER: I mean who buys a half million dollars worth of jewellery on credit?

NEWT GINGRICH: No it's a, go talk to Tiffany's.

REPORTER: It's very odd to me that someone would run up a half a million dollars bill at a jewellery store.

NEWT GINGRICH: Go talk to Tiffany's.

REPORTER: I mean you're running for president. You're going to be the guy in charge of the Treasury Department and it just sticks out like a sore thumb.

JANE COWAN: One of the strategists who resigned said Gingrich's professional staff had come to the realisation their ideas and Gingrich's vision for the campaign were incompatible.

His advisers are said to have favoured traditional, grassroots techniques whereas Gingrich preferred to rely on new technologies and his own intellectual prowess to stand out during debates with other candidates.

Political commentator Jonathan Alter says it was never going to work.

JONATHAN ALTER: He thinks he's going to go into these debates and be the smartest guy there and blow everybody away with his intellect.

He is oblivious to the appearances that are required for this kind of thing. Look at his chequered sexual and marital history. It is you know completely impossible to be elected president with that on his record.

JANE COWAN: Adding to the intrigue there's speculation the implosion of the Gingrich operation could benefit the Texan governor Rick Perry.

The longest serving governor in Texan history Perry has a small-government, anti-Washington message that's made him popular with conservative Tea Party activists.

He's one of the fringe figures who'd been toying with a possible run for the Republican nomination but had reportedly been reluctant to go for it without his key advisers who'd already signed on with Gingrich.

Today's mass resignation removes that obstacle.

The Democratic political consultant Paul Begala has this to say about Perry's chances.

PAUL BEGALA: Rick Perry will be a formidable candidate. He will be the candidate for every Republican for whom George W Bush was just a little too cerebral. So if Bush was too smart for you Perry is going to be right in your wheelhouse. And I think that he's going to get in.

JANE COWAN: Newt Gingrich himself says he remains committed to the race and will participate in a debate between the Republican presidential candidates next week.

But in another blow his former campaign co-chairman has all but defected to the Tim Pawlenty campaign, endorsing the former Minnesota governor for president.

This is Jane Cowan in Washington for The World Today.

From The World Today - Gingrich abandoned by campaign team 10/06/2011

 

[Curt James]

Senior Gingrich aides resign campaign en masse

'The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles,' promises candidate on Facebook

msnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 6/10/2011

WASHINGTON ??? The entire top echelon of Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign resigned on Thursday, a stunning mass exodus that left his bid for the Republican nomination in tatters. But the former House speaker vowed defiantly to remain a candidate.

"I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring," Gingrich said in a posting to his Facebook page. "The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles."

NBC News confirmed the departures to Gingrich's team, including spokesman Rick Tyler, campaign manager Rob Johnson, and strategists Dave Carney and Sam Dawson.

Tyler told NBC, "There is a path to victory ... But there was a dispute on what that path to victory was." Tyler was with the former House speaker for nearly 12 years. "I have no regrets. I admire him deeply. I hope he does become president."

'A different vision'

Other officials said Gingrich was informed that his entire high command was quitting in a meeting at his headquarters in Washington. They cited differences over the direction of the campaign.

"We had a different vision for victory," Tyler told The Associated Press. "And since we couldn't resolve that difference, I didn't feel I could be useful in serving him."

He said Gingrich was not allowing enough time to campaign in key states.

Carney also spoke to NBC saying, "The professional team came to the realization that the direction of the campaign they sought and Newt's vision for the campaign were incompatible."

Carney, who was heading up Gingrich's efforts in New Hampshire, is former aide to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who may be mulling his own White House run. And Johnson, Gingrich's (now former) campaign manager, ran Perry's election bid last year.

"Nothing has changed," Perry's spokesman, Mark Miner, said in an interview on Thursday. "The governor is focused on the legislative session."
Longtime Gingrich ally and attorney, Randy Evans, told NBC News while most senior aides have left the campaign, he is still on board with the candidate's presidential run.

NBC also confirmed that South Carolina consultant Katon Dawson and Iowa operative Craig Schoenfeld quit Team Gingrich. The entire full-time staff in Iowa, six aides, also quit.

"You have to be able to raise money to run a campaign and you have to invest time in fundraising and to campaign here in the state and I did not have the confidence that was going to be happening," Schoenfeld told The Des Moines Register.

Also reported by NBC: former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue ??? who was serving as Gingrich's national campaign co-chair ??? will now be endorsing Tim Pawlenty.

Scott Rials, a longtime aide who joined the departure, said, "I think the world of him, but at the end of the day we just could not see a clear path to win, and there was a question of commitment."

The upheaval in the campaign was likely to lead to a shakeup in the race for the party's presidential nomination, as well, as rivals reach out for disaffected staff, and possibly for donors who have been aligned with the former Georgia congressman.

Gingrich has long been viewed, by even his closest allies, as a fountain of policy ideas but a man who is unable to avoid speaking in ways that spark unwelcome controversy.

Even before the sudden departures of his top aides, Gingrich's campaign was off to a notably rocky start. Within days of formally announcing he would run, he was assailed by conservatives for criticizing a plan to remake Medicare that Republicans pushed through the House.

He telephoned the author of the plan, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, to apologize but did not back off his objections.

Within days, he had dropped from sight, embarking on a cruise to the Greek Isles with his wife, Callista, while rivals for the Republican nomination kept up their campaign appearances.

"I don???t know how other people work," Gingrich said of his vacation in The New York Times. "To have a major breakthrough in policy, you have to be able to stop and think."

He returned to the United States earlier in the week to confront a rebellion that had been brewing for some time among the senior echelon of his campaign.

While Gingrich told his now-departed aides he would remain in the race, he faces formidable obstacles in assembling a new team in time to compete in a campaign that's well under way. He has the allegiance of several former aides who served him when he was in Congress, but most if not all of them have moved into other fields.

Most immediately, he is scheduled to participate in a debate next Monday in New Hampshire.

Gingrich, 67, last served in public office more than a decade ago. He resigned as speaker of the House after two terms following an unexpectedly close mid-term election in 1998 in which Republicans gained far fewer seats than he had predicted.

In the years since, he has established a virtual one-man think tank, publishing books and speaking publicly.

Gingrich announced his presidential exploratory committee in May and is not required to report the results of his campaign fundraising until mid-July.

He has raised more than $52 million for American Solutions for Winning the Future, his nonprofit policy group that can legally accept unlimited donations.

But presidential campaigns are subject to much stricter rules ??? a candidate can accept a maximum contribution of $2,500 per person for the primary campaign and $2,500 per person for the general election.

One of them, political director Will Rogers, left last week out of dissatisfaction with the direction of the campaign.

He said that as of May 31, the day he announced he was quitting, the candidate had not scheduled any campaign days in the state. The Iowa caucuses traditionally begin the delegate selection process, and assembling a network of supporters is an arduous process that usually requires a candidate's frequent presence.

The Associated Press and NBC News Deputy Political Director Mark Murray contributed to this report.

From Senior Gingrich 2012 aides resign en masse - Politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com

 

[IronAddict]

This may freighten the Captn' if he hears this, he always gets upset when he hears about a, Newtiny on the bounty.

 

[LAM]

Newt is a total POS! have you heard about his money making scheme? he has a "company" that gives you an award but in order to receive it you need to send in a check for 20K. he's "running" strictly for the publicity to line his pockets. Jimmy McMillian has a better chance at becoming POTUS than Newt does.

 

[Curt James]

YouTube Video

lol So apparently Jimmy "The Rent is Too Damn High" McMillan doesn't pay rent where he lives? That's too funny.

He definitely dodged the question.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

It does look like Newt may have just entered the race for the purpose of some post campaign riches. It doesn't look like that will happen either since the campaign was over about as quickly as it started.

His campaign team is behaving eerily similar to Obama's economic team. They're all bailing at once. Newt's definitely not going to raise the billion that Obama is aiming for.

 

[Glycomann]

I really don't think Newt is all that bright. Plus he is a signatory of the PNAC and an otherwise moral car crash.

 

[MDR]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Never seen a so-called campaign go down in flames so fast. Man is fat, stupid and hateful.

 

[GearsMcGilf]

The Repubicans are in a similar predicament that the dems were in in 2004. John Kerry was the best they had to offer and we ended up with another 4 years of Bush. If all the repubs can do this time around is recycle the same group of "also-rans", then we'd better brace ourselves for another 4 years of Obama. Although, most of his cabinet probably won't stay on for a 2nd term. Hillary has already stated that she won't. It might be a good time to your 401K in gold, or possibly in the mattress.

 

[Big Smoothy]

Gingrich has never been a viable candidate, really, IMO.

I don't see seniors on Medicare voting for him (flashback to the 90s).

A well read intelligent guy, who used to shoot his mouth off. He doesn't shoot the mouth off anymore, but his negatives are too high.

He's not electable.

I remember that he recently said he had affairs or marriage problems because he was "working for hard for the country," or something to that affect.

I don't care about affairs, just don't insult our intelligence.

Newt is done, and he never really got started.

 

[Zaphod]

The Repubicans are in a similar predicament that the dems were in in 2004. John Kerry was the best they had to offer and we ended up with another 4 years of Bush. If all the repubs can do this time around is recycle the same group of "also-rans", then we'd better brace ourselves for another 4 years of Obama. Although, most of his cabinet probably won't stay on for a 2nd term. Hillary has already stated that she won't. It might be a good time to your 401K in gold, or possibly in the mattress.

Good to see someone else gets it.

 

[DEATH MATCH]

All you Liberals have a very short memory. Same thing happemned to John Mccain and he almost became president. And its friggin way early in this race. You Liberals just love blowing the media and listening to your msnbc dont ya.Newt is by far the best knowledge guy out there in the field and would mop the floor with this scum bag Barry. And I'll keep saying it no president has ever won office with unemployment over 7% EVER and no jobs and the economy in this shape and the debt that is this bad. But you Liberals keep holding on to your CHANGE the world theme and just watch. Any Republican that gets in will beat this idiot hands down. And I wont even bring up the other dumb ass idiot Biden

 

[LAM]

All you Liberals have a very short memory. Same thing happemned to John Mccain and he almost became president. And its friggin way early in this race. You Liberals just love blowing the media and listening to your msnbc dont ya.Newt is by far the best knowledge guy out there in the field and would mop the floor with this scum bag Barry. And I'll keep saying it no president has ever won office with unemployment over 7% EVER and no jobs and the economy in this shape and the debt that is this bad. But you Liberals keep holding on to your CHANGE the world theme and just watch. Any Republican that gets in will beat this idiot hands down. And I wont even bring up the other dumb ass idiot Biden

John McCain didn't almost become president, he got slaughtered...Obama got 300% more electoral votes than he did...

 

[DEATH MATCH]

John McCain didn't almost become president, he got slaughtered...Obama got 300% more electoral votes than he did...

typicsl Libersalism right here,Like I said Mccain was in newts shoes and almost became President,went from broke to almost president. Dead last to first keep playing with your Barry doll

 

[LAM]

typicsl Libersalism right here,Like I said Mccain was in newts shoes and almost became President,went from broke to almost president. Dead last to first keep playing with your Barry doll

I don't remember John McCain being censored by the House for ethics violations...