Newt

[Red Arrow]

Which means that, for all intents and purposes, the GOP has ceded the Whitehouse to Obama in 2012? 

Not necessarily.  Even the far right would probably vote for Romney rather than not vote and give the WH back to Obama. Romney can probably pull some center and somewhat conservative Democrat votes.  Newt has obvious baggage but if he can overcome that, he could possibly beat Obama.  There may be a lot of nose holding, as has been noted on this forum, and then vote to defeat Obama more than vote for the R candidate.  I have voted for the R to keep the D from winning more than once as I am sure that many Ds have voted D just to defeat the R.  It's US politics.

[AquaMan]

Not necessarily.  Even the far right would probably vote for Romney rather than not vote and give the WH back to Obama. Romney can probably pull some center and somewhat conservative Democrat votes.  Newt has obvious baggage but if he can overcome that, he could possibly beat Obama.  There may be a lot of nose holding, as has been noted on this forum, and then vote to defeat Obama more than vote for the R candidate.  I have voted for the R to keep the D from winning more than once as I am sure that many Ds have voted D just to defeat the R.  It's US politics.

Spoken like a true confirmed partisan. In reality, the general electorate is just not that passionate. They don't vote D just to defeat R or vice versa. They don't have time or patience for discussing politics around the coffee pot. In fact they don't even keep up with the issues at all.  Mostly if its that kind of race they just don't vote. 

For instance, I asked my co-worker who has some college, is in her late 50's and fundamentalist in religion just who is the current VP? Name one state senator? How do you feel about the republican candidates? Did you vote in the last presidential election? Are you strongly pro life?
Answers: don't know, don't know, don't know, no, of course.

Her answers weren't too different from the last couple of workplaces I've had to endure. They are hourly paid folks.

[Red Arrow]

Spoken like a true confirmed partisan. In reality, the general electorate is just not that passionate. They don't vote D just to defeat R or vice versa. They don't have time or patience for discussing politics around the coffee pot. In fact they don't even keep up with the issues at all.  Mostly if its that kind of race they just don't vote. 

Please explain the 2008 and 2010 general election. 2008 was more about getting rid of Republicans than any specific path that Obama proposed.  2010 the TEA party rallied some of the center, frequently with specific proposals, to vote the rascals out.  FWIW, I view you (and a few others) as confirmed partisans.  I am decidedly not a member of the Democratic Party but would leave out your words "true confirmed".  I have never checked the straight ticket although I have frequently voted for all the Republican candidates with individual vote marks.  I think the straight ticket option should be eliminated.  I accept that you (as a partisan) cannot possibly understand how I would truly disagree with the democratic party candidates.  My disagreement is frequently not at the most general goal level but more likely how to achieve that goal.

For instance, I asked my co-worker who has some college, is in her late 50's and fundamentalist in religion just who is the current VP? Name one state senator? How do you feel about the republican candidates? Did you vote in the last presidential election? Are you strongly pro life?
Answers: don't know, don't know, don't know, no, of course.

You can find stupid people on both sides. There are plenty of U Tube videos to support that.  Fundamentalist religious views of any of the religions are trouble in my view.

Her answers weren't too different from the last couple of workplaces I've had to endure. They are hourly paid folks.

So you are saying that all highly educated, salary exempt workers must by their education and position belong to the Democratic Party and have liberal values?  Sounds kind of arrogant to me.  I thought the Democratic Party was supposed to be the party of the worker bees.  Only the rich and powerful have conservative beliefs and belong to the party of the rich. 

[AquaMan]

You really have it bad this election cycle Red.

According to you, 2008 was more about getting rid of Republicans. According to you. That is not my memory. It was economics and age that were the prime issues. It was also about that change thing.

According to you 2010 the TEA party rallied some of the center. According to you. Not a center I ever recognized.

According to you I am a partisan but you are not. According to you. Yet, I judged you by your remarks, not your voting habits.

According to you I cannot understand your viewpoints though that doesnt' square with any of my past remarks. I am disappointed that you haven't been comprehending my posts.

Look, I am making a simple point that comes from a new perspective for me. I have always worked in office workplaces filled with salaried employees who were well educated, pretty well informed and opinionated. Now, the last decade, because of the oft quoted lazy, liberal, slacker mentality I possess, (can't be because I was born 6 decades ago  ) I have been forced to work with the mainstream of the population. The people who make things work for everyone else. Hourly workers who often work two or more jobs to keep up. It is shocking how little they know and how unpassionate they are about anything political. They can be mobilized, as Obama did in 2008, but it is more about accessing young peoples mentality, culture and communication channels than it was about what he had to say. Yet what he had to say also appealed to many who felt they had been recently screwed by a decade of Republican leadership.

Don't you ever watch Leno's man on the street interviews? I used to think they were actors. Nobody could be that poorly informed and stupid. They aren't actors. They are representative of a huge majority of this country. And they don't vote just to replace a D with an R.

[nathanm]

Newt has obvious baggage but if he can overcome that, he could possibly beat Obama.

Being the only speaker of the house ever convicted on ethics charges when the vote was 395-28 ought to end it right there, but apparently we've decided as a country that we don't care.

wevsus, it's too late for a new entrant to stand a good chance of winning, as the filing deadlines have already passed in several states.

[Red Arrow]

According to you, 2008 was more about getting rid of Republicans. According to you. That is not my memory. It was economics and age that were the prime issues. It was also about that change thing.

Hope & Change - Hope to change everything the Republican Party supposedly stood for. The economics Obama and the Hope and Change platform promoted were very pointedly about Republicans starving granny and oppressing the poor. We will just have to disagree. 

According to you 2010 the TEA party rallied some of the center. According to you. Not a center I ever recognized.

Are you that far left?  Out there with Wevsus?  Except in a few places, Republicans cannot win without gathering votes from the center. 

According to you I am a partisan but you are not. According to you. Yet, I judged you by your remarks, not your voting habits.

I merely wanted to drop "true confirmed".  I obviously prefer the Republican positions over the Liberal, Democratic Party positions just as your comments place you squarely in the Liberal, Democratic Party camp.  The only reason I mentioned straight ticket voting was because I have looked at some Democratic Party candidates.  Occasionally I even vote for them. There are plenty of true confirmed partisans that could not vote for the other side if their own candidate was Hugo Chavez.

According to you I cannot understand your viewpoints though that doesnt' square with any of my past remarks. I am disappointed that you haven't been comprehending my posts.

Actually, I said you don't understand how I could disagree with the Democratic Party candidates, not that you didn't understand my viewpoints.  Please read more carefully.

Look, I am making a simple point that comes from a new perspective for me. I have always worked in office workplaces filled with salaried employees who were well educated, pretty well informed and opinionated. Now, the last decade, because of the oft quoted lazy, liberal, slacker mentality I possess, (can't be because I was born 6 decades ago  ) I have been forced to work with the mainstream of the population. The people who make things work for everyone else. Hourly workers who often work two or more jobs to keep up. It is shocking how little they know and how unpassionate they are about anything political. They can be mobilized, as Obama did in 2008, but it is more about accessing young peoples mentality, culture and communication channels than it was about what he had to say. Yet what he had to say also appealed to many who felt they had been recently screwed by a decade of Republican leadership.

You know that we are about the same age so I don't think that is a factor.  I too have worked mostly with educated people.  Even as an enlisted guy in the Navy, most of my direct coworkers were technicians and not just swab jockies. During my engineering career,  I have been fortunate enough to have worked directly with factory floor workers to both implement my designs and receive valuable feedback.  My interface rarely involved politics.  I don't know if they just weren't interested or not.  It wasn't important to getting our jobs done.   

Don't you ever watch Leno's man on the street interviews? I used to think they were actors. Nobody could be that poorly informed and stupid. They aren't actors. They are representative of a huge majority of this country. And they don't vote just to replace a D with an R.

Don't watch Leno.  I did for a little after he took over from Johnny Carson but just didn't care for him that much.  I gravitated toward Letterman for quite a while, even with his liberal bias.  I quit watching when he mixed too much venomous political comment with his show in 2008.  I haven't watched him since.  I do appreciate Jay's car collection though.

[Red Arrow]

Being the only speaker of the house ever convicted on one ethics charges out of either 83 or 84 when the vote was 395-28 ought to end it right there, but apparently we've decided as a country that we don't care.

wevsus, it's too late for a new entrant to stand a good chance of winning, as the filing deadlines have already passed in several states.

We as a country have forgiven politicians for a lot more than we would ordinary citizens.

Why does the filing deadline need to be nearly a year before the election? 

[nathanm]

Why does the filing deadline need to be nearly a year before the election?  

For the primaries, which start in a month.

My point in bringing up the ethics charges is that Newt has been trying to spin it as somehow partisan when only 28 of his fellow Republicans voted to acquit, which is clearly not true.

[Red Arrow]

For the primaries, which start in a month.

Not all of them. 

I would agree though that if you want to run for Prez of the USA, you should know by now.

[AquaMan]

Red, we'll have more substantive conversations after the election is over. Right now we're not communicating.

[GG]

Gingrich Is Inspiring—and Disturbing
The first potential president about whom there is too much information.

    By PEGGY NOONAN
   
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

[Conan71]

You really have it bad this election cycle Red.

According to you, 2008 was more about getting rid of Republicans. According to you. That is not my memory. It was economics and age that were the prime issues. It was also about that change thing.

According to you 2010 the TEA party rallied some of the center. According to you. Not a center I ever recognized.

According to you I am a partisan but you are not. According to you. Yet, I judged you by your remarks, not your voting habits.

According to you I cannot understand your viewpoints though that doesnt' square with any of my past remarks. I am disappointed that you haven't been comprehending my posts.

Look, I am making a simple point that comes from a new perspective for me. I have always worked in office workplaces filled with salaried employees who were well educated, pretty well informed and opinionated. Now, the last decade, because of the oft quoted lazy, liberal, slacker mentality I possess, (can't be because I was born 6 decades ago  ) I have been forced to work with the mainstream of the population. The people who make things work for everyone else. Hourly workers who often work two or more jobs to keep up. It is shocking how little they know and how unpassionate they are about anything political. They can be mobilized, as Obama did in 2008, but it is more about accessing young peoples mentality, culture and communication channels than it was about what he had to say. Yet what he had to say also appealed to many who felt they had been recently screwed by a decade of Republican leadership.

Don't you ever watch Leno's man on the street interviews? I used to think they were actors. Nobody could be that poorly informed and stupid. They aren't actors. They are representative of a huge majority of this country. And they don't vote just to replace a D with an R.

Epithets like "McSame" aren't ringing a bell?  A McCain win was successfully painted as being a third Bush term.

[Conan71]

I'm seeing a lot of chatter about how the GOP establishment is coming out almost unanimously against Newt's candidacy.  You get that mostly in the form of the "thought leaders"/columnists/media personalities on the right just railing and railing against him in as many public forums as they can.

That sets up a pretty interesting dynamic where the GOP generally splits down the center between the unimpressive establishment candidate and the grass roots choice with (huge) historical liabilities.  I've seen a lot of suggestions about a brokered convention, which may or may not happen but which at least sounds plausible as the two sides get farther apart.  In either case, it's hard to see a situation where, should Romney get the nod, the party unites behind him.  It's starting to seem similarly plausible that a Newt candidacy would have the same problems. 

Here's what I haven't been able to figure out:  why hasn't one of the GOP stars that're sitting on the sidelines come running to the rescue?  The field has proven itself to be amazingly weak, and Romney can't seem to crack 20% support amongst the faithful.  You'd think that this would be a great time for a Christie or a Daniels or Paul Ryan or anyone with some star power to come charging in.  But they're all silent.  Where are the viable GOP candidates?

I don't understand why you aren't a writer for one of the MSNBC commentators.  You missed your calling.

As far as "star power"?  Star power is how we wound up with someone with zero leadership skills.  But he sure looks good and sounds good!

[AquaMan]

Epithets like "McSame" aren't ringing a bell?  A McCain win was successfully painted as being a third Bush term.

That was age and a general rebuke of anyone who had been perceived as participating in the economic collapse. McCain was unfairly characterized as having supported and represented those policies but so was anyone his age. And lots of folks on both sides of the aisle paid for those perceptions. His real failure was in campaigning. "Uhhh...that one....

Leadership is a subjective quality. I obviously think Obama led well during a difficult period of time and that he did so with entrenched opposition and impatient followers.

You know, leadership can be negative (Newt) which is less than zero if my math serves.

[Red Arrow]

Red, we'll have more substantive conversations after the election is over. Right now we're not communicating.

November is a long way off.  I bet we don't wait until then.