On January 19, 2012 Perry endorsed Gingrich and he’s picking up steam when his second ex-wife said he asked for an open marriage because of the affair he was having with his now third wife. In a South Carolina (SC) debate on this same day, Santorum attacked both Romney and Gingrich saying he’s been fighting for health reform, private sector, bottom up, the way America works best for 20 years while these 2 guys have been playing footsies with the left. Santorum also said in regard to Gingrich that there’s always that worrisome moment that something is going to pop and we can’t afford the anonymity (uncertainty) of Newt’s ideas; ABC’s correspondent thought it was Santorum’s strongest showing. Gingrich attacked a Fox mediator, Ron Williams, earlier in the week (when asked if he thought he was being insulting to blacks by calling Obama the food stamp President) and got standing ovation in this debate for criticizing CNN’s moderator, John King, for starting the Presidential debate by asking about his ex-wife’s allegations – his response to the question was – I think the destructive, vicious negative nature of much of the news media makes it hard to govern this country, hard to attract deceit people to run for office and I am appalled that you would begin a Presidential debate with a topic like that, (take an ex-wife and make it 2 days before the primary and make it a significant question in a Presidential campaign; it’s as close to despicable as anything he could imagine). Gingrich also said he was tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans. I don’t care that Gingrich cheated on his wife, he’s never denied it, but I do care that he thought cheating was important when he led the charge to impeach Clinton. Although I do agree with him in regard to the media attacking the non incumbent party; this has been going on for years. My problem is that now that these things affect him we are to disregard the allegations and learn to play nice. I will give Gingrich this, his 2010 tax return shows he made $3.1 million and paid 31%. Romney continued to say that he’d provide his tax returns in April but he’ll think about how many years he’ll submit (the crowd booed). Stephen Colbert said the only difference in Mitt Romney and a statue of Mitt Romney is that the statue never changes its position.
In the January 21 SC primary Gingrich got 41%, Romney 28%, Santorum 17% and Paul 13% of the votes. Political analysts say that since 1980 whoever won SC went on to take the nomination but point out that the SC winner has always won either Iowa or New Hampshire; this race defies history – there have been 7 different leaders and there has never been a time when 3 different people have won the first 3 races so they’re saying it’s anybody’s to take. After his showing in SC, Romney decided to release 2 years of his tax returns and we find out he made $42.5 million in 2 years, gave away over $7 million and paid about 14% in taxes ($6.2 million). We shouldn’t blame Romney for what he had no part in doing – creating the unfair federal tax code that allows him to pay taxes at the same rate as someone with ordinary taxable income of $70,000. The tax code needs fixing.
On January 23 NBC had a debate in Florida and there was no audience clapping allowed (Gingrich threatened not to show up to debates if the audience isn’t allowed to react but later said he would and urges moderators to allow the audience to boo and clap – show freedom of speech). In the debate Gingrich said there are 4 things that Romney misquoted and he didn’t want to talk about them during the debate (this has been a pattern); it was pointed out that the jobs issue didn’t come up until 50 minutes into the debate. On January 24 Gingrich said that the President “will always prefer a food stamp economy to a paycheck economy and call it fair”.
At a rally Gingrich promised a permanent base on the moon by 2020 if he’s elected President (John McCain said we ought to send him there). With everything that’s going on (jobs, housing, the national debt) for some reason he thinks this is important. It makes me wonder what he wants us to give up so that we can spend money on such an operation that has no relevance to the average American. In the January 26 Florida debate Gingrich tried to shut down the CNN moderator when he was questioned about his comment regarding Romney living in a world of Swiss bank and Cayman Island bank accounts; he didn’t win this time as Romney stepped up and said – wouldn’t it be nice if people wouldn’t make accusations elsewhere that they’re not willing to defend here (in the debate). Romney and Gingrich sparred over Freddie Mac, immigration and lunar missions. The possibility of Gingrich being nominated still has Republicans nervous. Bob Dole who was the leader in the Senate when Gingrich was the Speaker of the House said – “Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall”. Gingrich of course said they don’t want to change the establishment. Gingrich was the Speaker of the House from 1994 to November 6, 1998 (in 1995 he led the movement that shutdown the US federal government for the longest period in history); he resigned and left Congress because he would be facing a second rebellion by his own party. Herman Cain endorsed Gingrich on January 28. Polls continue to show that the most important thing for a Republican is the ability to beat Obama, not any of the real issues. On January 31 a PEW Research Center poll of Republican voters showed 52% of them feel the candidate pool is fair or poor; up 8% from just a few weeks ago (this coincides with my feeling that they do not have a candidate that should be president). The result of Florida’s voting was: Romney - 46%, Gingrich – 32%, Santorum 13% and Paul 7%.
No comments:
Post a Comment