Even a casual political observer can see that it’s already over for Repugnican Tea Party presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich, who seems to have flamed out about as quickly as did Donald Trump (whose presidential aspirations, I’m guessing, never were serious).
The only question now is when Gingrich will acknowledge that it’s all over.
In one week, Gingrich has been skewered for having criticized Repugnican Tea Party U.S. Rep. Paul Pretty Boy Ryan’s plan to destroy Medicare — after all, Eddie Munster cum J.C. Penney catalog model Ryan is being groomed to be the party’s next Ronald Reagan (although there sure seems to be an awful lot of Next Ronald Reagans…) — and Gingrich was even the victim of a public attack with fairy dust.
Gingrich has been raked over the coals for having told the truth about Ryan’s plan to destroy Medicare. Gingrich, on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” called Ryan’s plan “radical” “right-wing social engineering.”
How you back away from such a strong statement as that I don’t know, but the Repugnicans now are reporting that Ryan and Gingrich have kissed and made up, no hard feelings, blah blah blah.
While Gingrich has been lambasted for not having marched in lockstep with the Repugnican Tea Party, even Paul Ryan seems to recognize that he’s politically toxic, as he decided earlier this week not to run for a U.S. Senate seat in his home state of Wisconsin that because of a retirement is up for grabs in November 2012. (I had wanted to see a showdown for the Senate seat between Ryan and fairly progressive Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, but alas, that is not to be…)
Yesterday, Gingrich was “attacked” during a book signing in Minneapolis by a young man who proclaimed, “Stop the hate!” and sprinkled him with glitter:
Associated Press photo
(I’m, um, guessing that the young man is gay and that he was making a statement about Gingrich’s homophobia. To the young man I say: You go, girl!)
I have a feeling that if he keeps campaigning, Gingrich is going to be embarrassed like this frequently.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Gingrich keeps on going. In polls taken over the past month, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump occupied the top four slots of Repugnican Tea Party presidential favorites, so with the two of them having dropped out* within the past week, this pretty much leaves Gingrich’s toughest competitors Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, and Palin hasn’t announced that she’s running.
But Gingrich has not only the present, but has contemporary American history, against him. Since Dwight D. Eisenhower, no U.S. president has not been at least the governor of a state, a U.S. senator or U.S. vice president before moving on to the Oval Office. (Take that, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul!)
While Mitt Romney isn’t widely loved among the Repugnican Tea Party, I still expect him to emerge as the 2012 Repugnican Tea Party presidential nominee.
Increasingly, it seems, no one else wants that job.
P.S. I finally watched the video of Gingrich’s beglittering, and yes, it was a harmless protest against Gingrich’s history of homophobia.
“Nice to live in a free country,” Gingrich remarks falsely as he brushes away a shitload of glitter from the table on which he’s been signing copies of his book after the protester has been escorted away.
Why is it when wingnuts make statements like that, that they just love freedom, especially their opponents’ freedom, they’re just not believable?
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*A wingnut recently left a comment stating that I’m ignorant for having stated that Barack Obama’s having ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden was meant to boost Obama’s political standing, but not long after bin Laden’s assassination, both Huckabee and Trump bailed out, so, it seems to me, yes, bin Laden’s killing certainly coincided at least with the period of time in which Repugnican Tea Party candidates need to be deciding whether or not they’re going to run against Obama.
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