Newt is “within striking distance” of Mitt Romney in South Carolina, Politico is reporting. Perry’s exit stage left and subsequent endorsement of the former speaker should give him some fuel heading into tonight’s debate. I imagine if Santorum, the newly declared Iowa winner, were to drop out and endorse Newt that he’d have a fighting chance of toppling Mitt Romney in Saturday’s primary.
Of course, the ABC interview with his former wife – the one he had a six-year affair on – won’t help.
She said when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich.
“And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do,’” Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. “He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”
Marianne described her “shock” at Gingrich’s behavior, including how she says she learned he conducted his affair with Callista “in my bedroom in ourapartment in Washington.”
“He always called me at night,” she recalled, “and always ended with ‘I love you.’ Well, she was listening.”
Damning stuff, to be sure, but the words of a spurned lover are never given as much credence as they maybe ought to be. And this is old news. Gingrich may indeed be a moral failure, a man whose vanity obscured his many vows and promises. But we all already know this, and he is playing the reformed Christian now, insisting in his own personal regret and redemption. Perhaps it’s true.
All I know is that I hope he wounds Romney in this primary. I started this election off thinking Romney was a decent moderate – not in any way my own pick for president, but not particularly scary either. I no longer believe this. Romney, I’m quite certain now, has no soul. Gingrich may have made bad choices – his soul may be black in a few spots – but he has one. He’s a human being at the very least, warts and all. Romney is a machine at best, a blank slate willing to say and do anything to get elected.
I never thought I’d line up in Gingrich’s defense at all, but the man has more character than Mitt Romney which, I realize, isn’t saying much. At least I know there’s a mind and a person and a very, very big ego underneath Newt’s exterior. With Romney, I have a hard time seeing the man behind the mask.
Not to be intemperate and earn myself another Moore Award or anything, but I can’t, for the life of me, imagine any reason why anyone wants Republicans to anything other than DIAF.
There’s only one Republican I care about doing anything at all and that’s because at least half his ideas about what to do include “stop killing people.” The rest can totally go DIAF.
Newt has more soul than Romney? Are you kidding? If anything, this campaign has shown Newt to be the same old sanctimonious prick he’s always been, willing to play the race card, attack the courts, and use any method possible to go after someone who’s wounded him. He’s a narcissist through and through, somebody who thinks the rules apply to everybody else but not him.
Mitt may be a clueless condescending shape-shifter, who lies about Obama’s record every chance he gets, but at least he’s stood by his wife through MS and cancer (whereas Newt dumped his for the trophy model) and embodies the family values he supports. I wouldn’t vote for him on a bet, but I do think there’s some fundamental core of human decency there under the fake and shiny surface. I can’t say the same for Newt.
Well I guess I see all of Newt’s bad qualities as examples of his ownership of a soul. Souls aren’t necessarily good or bad, obviously. Newt is the politician’s politician and he’s full of crap 99% of the time, but I guess I just see something more human about him than Romney at this point. Romney just doesn’t feel real at all to me. Like there’s something missing. It’s all sort of an intangible “sense” more than anything, though. They’re both just awful.
Or, if you prefer, Mitt Romney couldn’t cheat on his wife because the concept of lust results in a division by zero error.
I find Romney’s political persona to be less than human as well, but he’s still not quite the dark abyss of evil and hatred that is Gingrich. He’s still getting there.
I think Newt is a scumbag, and not just for cheating on his wife. His behavior during the SC debate the other night was really almost sickening, particularly his “putting Juan Williams in his place,” as South Carolinians are describing it. Gingrich was using pretty blatant racial cues throughout the night. It was disgusting. When that woman thanked him yesterday for “putting Juan Williams in his place,” the look on Newt’s face convinced me that he knew exactly what he had done, and may actually have had second thoughts about it. I think Will Wilkinson may think otherwise. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/01/newt-gingrich
He’s a total scumbag.
Basically, he’s George Wallace in a sumo suit.
What an image.
Romney is a machine and Gingrich is a sociopath….decisions decisions
Democracy is defined by its lack of good choices.