Newt Gingrich Is Right (This Time)

(This caricature of Newt Gingrich is by DonkeyHotey.)

I have not been kind to Newt Gingrich on this blog, and I'm sure I'll probably have many negative things to say about him in the future. That's because I consider him to be one of the architects and chief promoters of the mean-spirited Republican "trickle-down" economic policy -- a policy that has been disastrous for the U.S. economy and for millions of U.S. citizens.

But I also try to be fair -- and if I'm going to point out the many times that he is wrong, then I should also be willing to point out the very few times that he is on the right side of an issue. And in the last few days, I believe Newt has shown some intelligence and empathy for a fellow human being.

After the death of Nelson Mandela, Gingrich posted a statement calling Mandela "one of the greatest leaders of our time", among other nice comments. But many of Gingrich's right-wing followers couldn't abide one of their icons saying nice things about Mr. Mandela -- and they countered with accusations of Mandela being a communist and terrorist, and called him other names. Gingrich could have backed down to please these people, or just ignored their vicious comments. He did neither. He struck back with an excellent defense of his original statement lauding Mandela. I thought his reply was very good, so I repost it below:

Yesterday I issued a heartfelt and personal statement about the passing of President Nelson Mandela. I said that his family and his country would be in my prayers and Callista’s prayers.

I was surprised by the hostility and vehemence of some of the people who reacted to me saying a kind word about a unique historic figure.

So let me say to those conservatives who don’t want to honor Nelson Mandela, what would you have done?

Mandela was faced with a vicious apartheid regime that eliminated all rights for blacks and gave them no hope for the future. This was a regime which used secret police, prisons and military force to crush all efforts at seeking freedom by blacks.

What would you have done faced with that crushing government?

What would you do here in America if you had that kind of oppression?

Some of the people who are most opposed to oppression from Washington attack Mandela when he was opposed to oppression in his own country.

After years of preaching non-violence, using the political system, making his case as a defendant in court, Mandela resorted to violence against a government that was ruthless and violent in its suppression of free speech.

As Americans we celebrate the farmers at Lexington and Concord who used force to oppose British tyranny. We praise George Washington for spending eight years in the field fighting the British Army’s dictatorial assault on our freedom.

Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote and the Continental Congress adopted that “all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Doesn’t this apply to Nelson Mandela and his people?

Some conservatives say, ah, but he was a communist.

Actually Mandela was raised in a Methodist school, was a devout Christian, turned to communism in desperation only after South Africa was taken over by an extraordinarily racist government determined to eliminate all rights for blacks.

I would ask of his critics: where were some of these conservatives as allies against tyranny? Where were the masses of conservatives opposing Apartheid? In a desperate struggle against an overpowering government, you accept the allies you have just as Washington was grateful for a French monarchy helping him defeat the British.

Finally, if you had been imprisoned for 27 years, 18 of them in a cell eight foot by seven foot, how do you think you would have emerged? Would you have been angry? Would you have been bitter?

Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison as an astonishingly wise, patient, and compassionate person.

He called for reconciliation among the races. He invited his prison guard to sit in the front row at his inauguration as President. In effect he said to the entire country, “If I can forgive the man who imprisoned me, surely you can forgive your neighbors.”

Far from behaving like a communist, President Mandela reassured businesses that they could invest in South Africa and grow in South Africa. He had learned that jobs come from job creators.

I was very privileged to be able to meet with President Mandela and present the Congressional Medal of Freedom. As much as any person in our lifetime he had earned our respect and our recognition.

Before you criticize him, ask yourself, what would you have done in his circumstances?

OMG! I Agree With Newt Gingrich!

(This caricature of Newt Gingrich is by DonkeyHotey.)

The Republicans were aghast at the outcome of the last election, and there is an increasing debate in their party about what they need to do to reverse the trend that seems to be developing (that they are becoming a permanent minority party). Some have said that they just need to tame their over-the-top rhetoric -- that making the rhetoric softer and nicer will show America how right they are and bring people flocking to their party. This is a silly idea of its face, since it assumes that the voters can't see past their silly talking.

A second group believes they just need better candidates. One of the major proponents of this group is Karl Rove, who recently started a political PAC dedicated to fighting the more ridiculous GOP primary candidates (like Akin, Mourdock, O'Donnell, and Angle). Surprisingly, one of the bigger nuts in the Republican Party, Newt Gingrich, has said this idea is also ridiculous. Here is some of what Gingrich had to say at the conservative site Human Events:

While Rove would like to argue his “national nomination machine” will protect Republicans from candidates like those who failed in Missouri and Indiana, that isn’t the bigger story.

Republicans lost winnable senate races in Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. So in seven of the nine losing races, the Rove model has no candidate-based explanation for failure.  Our problems are deeper and more complex than candidates.

Handing millions to Washington based consultants to destroy the candidates they dislike and nominate the candidates they do like is an invitation to cronyism, favoritism and corruption.

It bothers me to agree with Gingrich about anything, because he has been so wrong about so many things in the past. But he is right on this issue. The problems the Republicans face go much deeper than the candidates they are running (or the rhetoric they are using). The real problem is that the GOP candidates are supporting policies that have failed, are mean-spirited and hard-hearted, and just downright scare most American.

If the Republicans want to return to power, they need to change more than their rhetoric and their candidates. They need to moderate their policies to be more in line with what the majority of Americans believe, and develop policies that appeal to a broader cross-section of the diverse American population. The idea of winning elections by appealing only to older white males is gone, and with the decreasing percentage of whites in the total population, will never come back.

American voters do swing from slightly left to slightly right and back from time to time, but the truth is that the United States is a middle of the road country that values moderation and abhors extremism. As long as the Republican Party represents the policies of the extreme right, they will stay in trouble with the voters.

Buying The Nomination

We have known for a while now that a candidate can't run for president in this country unless they are rich or have lots of rich friends willing to spend freely for them. That has never been more apparent than in the current race for the Republican presidential nomination. Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) has virtually assured himself of the nomination (although it will still take a few more weeks to amass the required number of delegates), but it has taken a ton of money for him to do so.

And an argument can be made that he bought the nomination, because he had at his disposal a lot more money than was available to any of his opponents. When his campaign started to slow (as it often did), he had millions more that he could spend on campaign advertising than the other candidates did, and he was not shy about spending it to swing the election back his way.

CNN did a survey of campaign spending by the end of March, and it's pretty revealing. At that time, Romney had gotten 4.1 million votes and amassed 607 delegates. To get those votes and delegates, the Romney campaign had spent about $76.6 million -- and that doesn't count what the super-PACs spent on his behalf (adding super-PAC spending pushes the total up to about $122 million). Here is what each vote and delegate cost him:

Each vote cost him about $18.68.
Each delegate cost him about $126,194.

But that's only considering the campaign spending. When the super-PAC money is figured in, the totals go up to:

Each vote cost him $29.76.
Each delegate cost him $200,988.

Those are some pretty expensive votes and delegates. But Romney wasn't the only person to pay a lot for the votes and delegates they got. While the other candidates didn't have near as much money or spend near as much, they got less votes and delegates -- meaning that their cost per vote and delegate was also very high. Here are the totals for other candidates (with super-PAC spending included in the figures in parentheses):

RICK SANTORUM
Total spending $18.7 million ($26.7 million)
Each vote cost $6.45 ($9.21)
Each delegate cost $70,833 ($101,136)

NEWT GINGRICH
Total spending $21 million ($39 million)
Each vote cost $9.55 ($17.73)
Each delegate cost $148,936 ($276,595)

Super-PAC spending was insignificant for Ron Paul, but his campaign was the least cost-effective in buying votes and delegates.

RON PAUL
Total spending $35 million
Each vote cost $31.82
Each delegate cost $486,111

Santorum Is Out & The Race Continues

(The above caricature is by the inimitable DonkeyHotey.)

Rick Santorum (aka Mr. Frothy) has surprised nearly everyone. He suspended his campaign before his own home state votes on April 24th. Was he afraid he might lose in his home state (Pennsylvania)? Or did he just finally read the writing on the wall, and realize that there was no way for him to win a majority of the delegates and become the nominee? Or did he finally give in to pressure from party officials (who are looking for a way to end this embarrassing debacle).

We'll probably never know what the reason was, but Santorum has now joined the ranks of the other wannabes who've dropped out (like Perry, Cain, Bachmann, Huntsman, Pawlenty, Johnson, and even Trump). Yesterday, Santorum told reporters:

"We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over for me and we will suspend our campaign effective today. We are not done fighting."

Santorum said he had called Romney earlier in the day and informed him of the decision. At this point, it should be noted that there were two things Santorum didn't do. He didn't throw his support behind any other candidate. And he didn't release the delegates he has won so they could support another candidate. All he did was stop campaigning.

Does this move by Santorum officially end the nomination race? Well, no. Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) still does not have the required number of delegates to give him the nomination. And even if he wins every delegate from the five states voting on April 24th, he will still not have enough delegates. Romney now has to be the odds-on favorite to grab the nomination, but this race is going to continue for a while.

The real question is what are the teabaggers and evangelicals going to do now? Are they going to finally give up and throw their support to Romney (something they've refused to do for months now)? Or are they just going to slide over to another "anti-Romney" candidate (like they have done time after time)? After all, Gingrich is still in the race, and Paul (although he's proven to be too crazy for even the teabaggers and evangelicals). It will be interesting to see what these two groups do now.

For his part, Gingrich was quick to try and grab the Santorum supporters, saying:

"I am committed to staying in this race all the way to Tampa so that the conservative movement has a real choice.  I humbly ask Senator Santorum’s supporters to visit Newt.org to review my conservative record and join us as we bring these values to Tampa."

2nd Poll Shows Growing GOP Unpopularity

Yesterday I posted about the recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll, which showed the popularity of the GOP presidential candidates is dropping. The most popular, Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie), lagged 19 points behind President Obama in the poll's favorability ratings. The poll also had President Obama with a double-digit lead over all of the GOP candidates in head-to-head match-ups.

While those poll numbers looked good for Democrats, it's always good to have the numbers verified by another respected poll, and that's just what has happened. The CNN/ORC International Poll was released a day later, and it verifies what the previous poll had shown. As the chart above shows, the poll also has the president with a 19 point gap over the favorability of the most popular Republican -- with the president having a 56% favorable rating to 37% for Romney, 35% for Santorum and Paul, and 24% for Gingrich. The Republicans all had higher negative than positive ratings, while the president had an 8 point higher positive than negative rating.

And the good news doesn't stop there. When looking at the favorability ratings of the two parties (which could have a big effect on congressional elections), the poll shows the Democrats have opened up a 13 point difference in favorability over the Republicans. The Democrats had a 48% favorable to 45% unfavorable rating, while the Republicans had a 35% favorable to 58% unfavorable rating.

An interesting part of the poll is in the demographics section. It looks like the Democrats can thank women for their growing lead in favorability. While men give the Democrats a higher unfavorable rating than favorable (42% to 50%), women more than make up for that by giving Democrats a 14 point higher favorable rating than unfavorable (54% to 40%). It looks like the GOP's "war on women" is taking a toll on them. Both men and women now give the GOP lower favorable than unfavorable ratings -- men (36% to 57%) and women (34% to 59%).

And like the previous poll, this poll shows the low favorable ratings of the GOP candidates and the Republican Party translates into a double-digit lead for the president over either of the top two Republican candidates. Here are those nationwide numbers:

REGISTERED VOTERS

Obama...............54%
Romney...............43%

Obama...............55%
Santorum...............42%

ALL RESPONDENTS

Obama................56%
Romney...............40%

Obama...............57%
Santorum...............39%

But while both of these recent polls show the Democrats are in a good position and the numbers are moving their way, that does not automatically mean they will win in November. If too many Democrats and Independents think the election has already been won and stay home on election day, we could see another electoral disaster like 2010. The only thing these numbers should do is inspire Democrats (and Americans in general) to work even harder to turn out a big vote -- and save this country from Republican incompetence and malfeasance.