Ron Paul released a very professionally done hit job on Newt. It’s all over at Drudge, HotAir, etc. Not really surprising, since Paul and Newt apparently have some bad blood going far back, and Newt totally embarrassed Paul at the national security debate.
While it would be easy to whine about these things, it’s all fair game and something Newt will have to survive if he is to be the nominee. I think he will survive the attacks because it’s dredging up stuff that already is known.
Newt, by contrast, went there, so to speak, calling Obama out for his Alinskyite philosophy and tactics:
On the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich is trying to make some new inroads on President Obama by reviving an old charge, suggesting that the president’s past as a community organizer ties him to a “radical” tradition.
“Obama believes in a Saul Alinsky radicalism which the press corps was never willing to look at,” Gingrich told a standing room-only crowd at Tommy’s Country Ham House here. “When he said he was a community organizer, it wasn’t Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. It was radicalism taught on the south side of Chicago by Saul Alinsky.”
It’s part of a strategy that Gingrich has adopted as he has moved into the lead in some polls.
“I’m going to stay focused on the president,” Gingrich said, indicating that he’ll avoid attacks on fellow Republicans. “The audiences I’m talking to seem to like somebody who’s both positive about solutions and focused on the president.”
Newt gets it. It’s why he’s moving up, attracting large crowds, and now has a target on his back.
Update: Newt just had an amazing interview on Hannity. I’ll post segments (or maybe the whole thing) tomorrow if available. Here’s a reaction from someone who has not been a Newt fan:
Update 12-1-2011 – Video of Newt’s interview in new post, All the king’s horses may not be enough for Romney
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Comments
Me thinks the professor needs to give his Newt pom-poms a rest for a while.
Why? Newt has been doing some very cheer-worthy things lately and seems to have gotten past his old habit of arguing with himself in public.
Me thinks this is the professor’s blog and he is a declared Newt supporter. You know this. You know that his blog will reflect that. Your constant suggestions that the professor’s support of Newt is blind and unreasoning (and by extension, the support of everyone who agrees with him) has gotten pretty tiresome. Sometimes people disagree with you, and that’s not the end of the world. Deal with it.
Rasmussen has Newt up two over Obama, well ahead of Romney in Iowa and Florida, and gaining on Romney in New Hampshire.
I guess there are a lot of cheerleaders out there. Actually, you seem to know nothing about cheerleaders. Even when their team is losing every game of the season they have their pom poms out. If the Professor were a cheerleader, he’d still be doing acrobatic flips in tandem with Perry’s flops.
LukeHandCool (who does know a bit about cheerleaders from his teenage days … but who isn’t one to kiss and tell … without a lucrative book deal involved).
Newt’s not perfect, but he gains points every time I hear this: “I’m going to stay focused on the president,” Gingrich said, indicating that he’ll avoid attacks on fellow Republicans.
It’s not likely my primary vote will matter by the time it gets to me, but how much I support the eventual nominee will depend on how they behave now.
Just imagine if all these people spent their time showing how good they will be in the general election by going after Obama now instead of each other. Then, even if they lose the primary America wins and we respect them for their work.
Your primary vote may mean more than you think. The GOP has gone for a proportional delegate system in more states this year instead of WTA, so the contest for nomination may take longer to decide and may come down to the last state or even a brokered convention.
Newt has shown a better sense of strategy than the other candidates and it’s working for him.
One brilliant move at the local level here is to have the webmaster of the Charleston Tea Party is on his payroll, a point she discloses in the comments.
It is certainly smart to find a national, self-organizing effort and throw yourself to the front of it, or encourage your troops to place themselves at the front. That’s more foresight than Romney can muster on a good day.
We need to stay on Obama. He will say whatever, and do whatever to get re-elected. We must not divide because he wins if we do. I had misgivings about Newt, but he is the only one that knows the media, and history enough to beat Obama. The media will chew everyone else up (unless Sarah comes back!) and there are gullible, uninformed people that believe Obama is going to help them.
Check out the sweet delicious bias at the article.
“GOP candidate links Obama to famed organizer that tea party now emulates.”
Really! Ham-handed bias, to be sure…
I think one of the reasons people are attracted to Newt is that he is a fighter and a winner. Before 1994, the Republicans and conservatives were quite comfortable being the Congressional doormats. Rush always talks about Republican Bob Michaels and how he expressed satisfaction with being a loser. Then came Newt with a plan. He executed it and to everyone’s surprise he won with his persistence and single mindedness.
I didn’t see the Paul ad but I’d like to ask Paul a question: Did you take advantage of the Republican majority? DId you thank Newt that you were not some minority back-bencher?
Can anyone imagine Romney et al attacking O for his Alinkyism? Remember when McCain went ballistic when someone used Obama’s middle name?
Sure Newt has made a lot of missteps but so have all of them. A lot of us know what O really believes and what he intends to do to our country. Most of the “smart” people can’t bring themselves to believe it. Newt knows as well and he is the right person to instruct and demonstrate it to the public.
Newt’s a fighter and a winner. Milton Friedman said we’re better off having the wrong people do the right thing. If all these candidates are wrong conservative-wise, I pick the fighter.
Confrontationally. That’s the way to do.
Bring the leftist game directly to/at the pretender in the WH. Force him to defend the steal from some to buy the votes of others tactic.
I like Newt’s blunt attack associating BHO with Alinski, almost as much as I like his direct attacks at the liberal press.
I just watched that Paul attack ad. How pathetic! He uses clips of some of the most liberal leftist broadcasters and talking heads to prove his point (Ed Schultz, Wolfie Blitzer, Salon commentator? Really?! Really?! Please!)!? And the clips are all things that Newt has both explained (ad nauseam) and clarified sufficiently.
Paul is feeling the heat, and sees his chance – probably his last one – slipping away.
Sad. Please go away, Rep. Paul – back to the Congress to work HARD to ensure the Fed is audited, that the Congress votes to stop the self-enriching insider trading, and to push Cut, Cap, and Balance along with FULL REPEAL of ObamaCare.
You have great economic chops. You diminish them by going negative on the party “flavor of the month” that you see (rightly, IMHO) as the pull-away front-runner. You have some strengths. Please use them.
There are several things which the American people are sick of in politics; one of the main ones is the dirty attacks against opponents. By attacking Newt, you have just cut your slim chances to nil. It cost Michele Bachmann, and is costing Mitt. You are revealing that you’re next.
The target, the opponent to defeat, is Obama.
Fyi — Newt just “went there” again in his full hour interview with Sean Hannity on Fox, chiding the press for never digging into Obama’s Chicago past — and not only the cimmunity organizer/Alinsky part. He wondered aloud what Obama taught in his classes and implied he would find out.
No question that this is red meat for conservatives in the primaries — as well as fair and overdue.
[…] goes after Obama on Alinsky. I guess after 3 1/2 years, somebody was bound to get around to […]
I can’t wait for your posting of the video……. I don’t have cable anymore, so Hannity TV is an online only option now.
It is long overdue that the Alinsky ties, the true meaning of “community organizer” (no, it is not “code” for raaaaacism), and the rest are exposed for what they truly are: radical extremism (to put it nicely).
Go Newt! You are the only one I’ve seen who is taking it to Obama, while treating the rest of the field as competitors, not opponents. Classy. And right on the mark.
Newt doing the Obama vetting the elite media is still failing to do.
I am not a Ron Paul supporter. I am not a Newt Gingrich supporter. And I am not an Obama supporter. But I predict Obama will largely copy the themes of this ad, if not the ad itself, in the general election regardless of whether Romney or Newt is the GOP nominee. And it will likely be very effective. Because it is all too true. About both Romney and Gingrich…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWKTOCP45zY&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1
Professor: I do like how Newt has acted this election season. He has many formidable challenges ahead if he’s to gain the nomination but I believe he’ll do meet those and do well. Still, the nomination process has a long way to go and there’s plenty of opportunity for each of these potential nominees to stagger and falter. Newt’s approach of concentrating on Obama rather on his competition is what I’d hoped Pawlenty would have done rather than going after others.
Still, Ron Paul bothers me in that I suspect he’ll go 3rd party in a fit of pique if he doesn’t get the nomination. That act would almost certainly ensure Obama’s re-election and the downfall of this country as federal republic. Obama would then enact his authoritarian decrees without concern for our laws and Constitution.
Then your fears have a good chance of being realized because there is IMO no way the GOP would nominate Ron Paul. He has baggage & positions that may appeal to the libertarian mindset but for many his foreign policy positions are the deal killer. His nomination would cause me to leave the POTUS line blank.
[…] Newt “Goes There.” This is why he’s polling so well. Romney take […]
[…] in Newberry, South Carolina and declared Barack Obama a radical Alinsky-ite. Via InstaPundit, via Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, via National Journal : Saul Alinsky – Barack Obama “Obama believes in a Saul Alinsky radicalism […]
Anytime someone takes a jab at Obama, an anti-marxist gets their wings.
[…] in Newberry, South Carolina and declared Barack Obama a radical Alinsky-ite. Via InstaPundit, via Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, via National […]
I’m not buying the “new” Newt….nope
Unearthed: Gingrich Makes the Case for GSE’s on Freddie Mac’s Web Site in 2007/2008
“In response to the Bloomberg story, in an interview with Laura Ingraham, Gingrich pretty much flatly denied that he had made a conservative case for GSE’s on behalf of Freddie Mac. Instead, he would have us believe that had Freddie Mac followed his sage advice they would not have ended up in the predicament they ultimately found themselves in. But the simple fact of the matter is at the very height of the housing bubble, when perhaps tens of billions of dollars in losses could still have been averted, Gingrich took a very clear and very public position in support of Freddie Mac and the market function they performed, while serving as a paid consultant. And it seems to me that he has yet to fully own up to this.
Also. I’d sure like to know exactly what Gingrich had in mind when speculating whether GSE’s might play a role in financing health care. Because this sounds an awful lot like some of the ideas floating around for a “public option” in 2009….”
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=34603
Verum Serum does not highlight in its quoted language and ignores in its commentary the fact that Newt called for better regulation of GSE’s like Fannie and Freddie — and that was in April 2007 when people would have you believe he was “lobbying” for Freddie — “So while we need to improve the regulation of the GSEs, I would be very cautious about fundamentally changing their role or the model itself.” Very typical of the attacks on Newt, taking what he said only in pieces and ignoring the full conversation.
Pretty much par for the course, for some enthusiasts. If their guy (or “gal,” given Ms. Bachmann) isn’t the anointed one, they’ll tear down the competition. Never mind that helps the wrong people; apparently too many people have forgotten Reagan’s 11th Commandment. ;-/
Like crabs in a bucket.
[…] Legal Insurrection flags this unsettling piece from the National Journal: On the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich is trying to make some new inroads on President Obama by reviving an old charge, suggesting that the president’s past as a community organizer ties him to a “radical” tradition. […]
[…] and Girl Scouts. It was radicalism taught on the south side of Chicago by Saul Alinsky. — Newt Gingrich Nostalgia for the old days increases as liberals seek escape from mounting evidence in the present […]
[…] Newt continues to rise: » Newt “goes there” on Obama/Alinsky – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion “Obama believes in a Saul Alinsky radicalism which the press corps was never willing to look […]
[…] calls will be and the more press the MSM will give them. Particularly if Gingrich keeps talking like this: “Obama believes in a Saul Alinsky radicalism which the press corps was never willing to look […]
[…] calls will be, and the more press the MSM will give them. Particularly if Gingrich keeps talking like this: “Obama believes in a Saul Alinsky radicalism… the press corps was never willing to look […]