Our political Quote of the Day comes from Pajamas Media’s Roger L. Simon, who explains why he finds former House Speaker Newt Gingrich so politically attractive as potential head of the GOP ticket in 2012:
Now I am not a Beltway person. I am something even worse — a Hollywood & Vine person — so everything I say is suspect and should be. But allow me to chime in on why Newt is attractive to some of us at this juncture.
Let’s begin here: America is in a slough of despond. In fact, it’s in close to the worst shape it’s been since the Great Depression. Negativity rules the land. Few people are happy or optimistic. Basically, this once great nation is asleep.
And we have a president who wants us to stay there, who is banal, irritating, humorless, reactionary, self-righteous, and narcissistic all at once. He hasn’t said one interesting thing or proposed one creative idea since being in office.
Unfortunately, the Republican candidates aren’t much better. Romney, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman, even Paul, are no more than critics of a system gone moribund. They do not inspire us. Their ideas, even when worth investigating (flat tax, etc.), are no more than rehashes of proposals we have heard for decades.
Only Newt dances. Only Newt, on occasion, is original. Only Newt — and here is the important part — has the capacity to wake us up.
What attracts me about the man is the very thing that Romney criticized, the part that wants to explore the moon and stars, maybe even mine them.
Sure Gingrich has an idea a minute, many of which are bad, but at least he has ideas. At least he is thinking. And — guess what — he says what he thinks. Politicians aren’t supposed to do that.
But Gingrich reminds me more of a Steve Jobs or a Richard Branson than he does of a politician, and that is a good thing because politicians these days are the kind of people that make me want to bang my forehead against the desk.
And I would like to add — and perhaps this disqualifies me — that I don’t care who is more or less conservative, who is a RINO and who is not, or what kind of libertarian someone may or may not be. I think when your ideology has become rigid, you have checked your brains at the door. If you want proof of that, just look at today’s liberals. Their ideology has been extinct for years and they are walking around like the living dead, trying to preserve the welfare state and the vision of Lord Keynes while the whole world crumbles around them.
But, you’re saying, Gingrich has all these faults.. He’s erratic, arrogant, impatient, smart-alecky, thin- skinned, selfish, with a nasty grin like a roadshow Satan, etc., etc.
Well, yeah.
This does add some perspective to those who are dumbfounded that given laundry list of critical principles and litmus test stands articulated by many conservatives during the past year that could not be considered fight-to-the-death positions of Gingrich and that led to the sinking of other political careers in the GOP, Gingrich is riding high and quite possibly could occupy the Oval Office in 2013. Yeah, indeed.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.