Last night’s debate reminded people of why Newt surged in the fall before Romney’s SuperPAC and almost the entire conservative media went after him in December.
This was one of the highlights (which led to Juan williams asking the ill-fated follow-up on the “food stamp president” line):
Here were some reactions from more neutral observers:
But the best focus was by Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics (h/t HotAir):
You know, the Honey Badger (a very funny NSFW version is here):
Who do you want taking on Obama? Will our nominee be predator or prey?
Update: Those of you who watched the NSFW version of the Honey Badger video will appreciate this: Honey Badger Viral Sensation Heading to TV (h/t @Allahpundit)
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Comments
You have hit the nail on the head. Romney can be predicted because he is campaign consultant driven. His dominance has been simply a result of bought ad space, not fitness for office. Once we hit the general, he will run into an opponent that can outspend him and has more consultants and helpers than Romney will ever have. Newt has the intellectual firepower to beat the media at the own game and transcend the game. Newt’s intellect is a force multiplier on campaign dollars.
New was fantastic last night. I couldn’t help put wonder, had that Newt been the one responding to the Romney Super-PAC ads, things might have been different. But if anything, it illustrates a Gingrich Jekyll-Hyde problem. And it probably comes too late.
I also think you have a proxy victim complex with the conservative media.
Fans cheering for their team. All just seeing what they want to see.
Newt actually came off smug and superior and pompus, and didn’t win over any new fans.
He’ll pick up some voters as Santorum and Perry drop out, but nobody new loves Newt after last night.
And NOBODY new will give Newt a penny because of last night. And Newt is out of money. (Not that he ever raised much of any. http://www.fec.gov/disclosurep/pnational.do )
Funny how the Prof. took yet another shot at Ron Paul, again seeing what he wants to see. The Fox News streaming commentators thought his performance was solid, and effective. As did I.
Newt’s all done. Dead man walking. You just can’t admit it, because the only alternative you see is Romney, who is evil. Denial ain’t just a river . . .
A Paul-bot speaks, echoing the illustrious Paul himself. Lemmings listen and follow.
Paul supporters just can’t accept that he would lose a significant number of Republican voters if he were the GOP nominee. Libertarians may have an inflated idea as to their numbers. Paul’s personna as the “crazy uncle in the attic” is something he can’t shake.
They don’t care about winning. They only care about being more right than anyone else, in public.
They wouldn’t know what to do with the office if they did somehow manage to win it.
Any independent who didn’t love Newt’s answers, isn’t really an independent.
“Newt: Dead man walking”
“Romney: Evil”
“Santorum: Ballsy Arlen Specter supporter”
“LI Commenters: Morons, idiots and clowns”…
Beat me up, Scotty.
Order acknowledged….prepare for transmission.
“Here it comes.”
Do you really want Scotty to beat you up?
Good catch on the ‘t’ but Scotty taught me to understand the tongues of evil alien lifeforms 😉
Well, you’ve convinced me, Scott. I’m on the Paul train to glory now.
Bwaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha.
I will admit that the tone of the many loud, derisive boos Ron Paul got this time out seemed less heartfelt than previously, so progress is noted.
I’ve never heard him booed before, and this time was a tiny smattering of empire-lovers, who seem to have objected to the position that we shouldn’t simply invade allies willy-nilly. (Howy ou must have gotten a chubby from the grunts of your fellow fascists!)
Clearly YOU think it’s ok to send assault teams into sovereign nations, and destabilizing allies, when other means were available.
When Americans boo the golden rule, we’re truly fucked.
But then, reading all the comments at THIS “conservative” blog had along ago convinced me we’re good and truly fucked.
When the “good guys” don’t actually believe in small government, liberty and the Constitution, what chance is there that freedom can prevail?
Now call me a Paulbot, as if that wins the argument. Prove my point.
Transporter official rules: Insult LI, say a naughty word and step to the front of the line. Interested in joining MerryCarol?
Ah well, it seems my (lousy) play on words got lost in translation.
Scotty prefers to “beat up” (with a ‘t’) his opponents (including most LI commenters) with name-calling punches.
@MerryCarol
Ah! Oops.
Poor Scott…..
“I’ve never heard him booed before, and this time was a tiny smattering of empire-lovers..”
LOL. They booed so loud they stopped the debate until it ended. Something under the sun: rose colored boos!
“Clearly YOU think it’s ok to send assault teams into sovereign nations, and destabilizing allies, when other means were available.”
Now I think it’s OK to send them into Wisconsin.
“When Americans boo the golden rule, we’re truly fucked.”
Word to the hopelessly idealistic and comically naive: The world doesn’t run on the golden rule. Ron Paul would get a lot of people killed.
“Now call me a Paulbot, as if that wins the argument.”
We call you Paulbot because you’re a Paulbot, regurgitator of Paulian talking points and blind cheerleader for the cause – you lost the argument long ago. Besides, as you’ve shown, the argument is won with profanity and peurile argumentation. Right?
And what’s that I hear? The beginning of calls to put Ron Paul out of the Republican Party?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kristol-let-ron-paul-go_617074.html
Fascists! Suckups! Big government lovers! Earmark deniers! Ahhh! Ahh! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
lol x 100
🙂
I heard Kristol on C-SPAN today, and he absolutely nailed it. (FWIW, though, no one is saying Paul will be ousted since there’s no practical way to force someone out of a political party.) Paul simply isn’t a Republican and while the party has made every effort to bring him into the big tent, he hasn’t reciprocated. He shouldn’t get a free ride on the Republican brand, and I don’t think he or his contingent are happy in the party anyway.
But won’t because he’s got nowhere to go.
The Libertarian party is complete nutroll. For all the beautiful simplicity of their principles, for all their unblemished adherence to natural law, the Libertarians can’t organize their way out of a paper bag.
And Paul doesn’t have the leadership chops to start his own party, or he would have done so years ago.
@scooby
And frankly he’s probably too old to do so anyway.
His son is certainly young enough and respectable enough, but I suspect the senator would prefer to stay in the Republican party.
It’s time for Ron Paul to go, and John McCain, and Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner, and…
i prefer the more descriptive ‘paultard’.
You’re just mad because Gingrich kicked Ron Paul’s butt last night. Did you enjoy the boos?
Spot on right!
The local trade/technical school offers 2-year programs in everything to get you started in a career from baker and hair stylist to computer technician, electrician, plumber, carpenter, welder, accounting clerk … etc., etc., etc. The two-year accounting clerk program allows you to transfer to a four-year university for a bachelor’s in business/accounting.
As for the honey badger, I want him for V.P. … or an army of them to accompany our Navy Seals.
LukeHandCool (who is thinking of taking the electrician program starting next fall as he loves studying an eclectic mix of things).
Think “plastics”.
Plastics? Plastics?
Mr. Hawkins, you … you’re trying to seduce me.
Boy, you sure do got a purty mouth.
I always wondered what a Honey Badger was…….. Now I know! Very, very fearless, just what we need to go up against the billion-dollar Won.
If you’re going to have honey badgers and cobras at home, you have to raise them together from birth and they’ll be buddies … otherwise they’re natural enemies and their battles will have your house in a constant mess.
So you are saying that Newt won’t be reaching across the aisle, then? 😉
Newt should just be unapologetically Newt and stop acting like a domesticated honey badger.
He should just start biting some heads off.
LukeHandCool (who thinks Newt’s team would do well to adopt the honey badger meme and use the video the Professor found).
You know I had to google the randall narrated honey badger vid. Romney is the snake, he bit honey badger Newt but that did not kill him, he will be back.
Great metaphor in the video with the honey badger taking the venom, collapsing into seeming death but rising hours later to finish the kill.
Legetimate question though, will Newts comments re: unemployment be twisted into the creation of a new entitlement that will just promote fraud and more waste. (Sign up here now for University of Pheonix’s Unemployment approved program!)
I think overall Newt did good, however a great theory man still has to get over the fact that many voters may find him condescending. (The state of political play blows in this country.)
That was Rick Santorum’s argument last night. But, is it a new “entitlement” program? Isn’t it adapting social security to allow for 401(k) type investments?
Social security is different than a real entitlement program. You have to contribute for a number of years to get something back. Your pay out is based on what you *pay in*. It has been raided to make it more like an entitlement program, but Newt’s proposal makes it less entitlement by having people’s money remain their own–not just get thrown into a big pot and being taken away when you die.
Newt’s program, like social security, is the use of your *own* money (not tax money) – a better use than social security which gains none, zero, no money. Not invested one bit. It loses by inflation, not to mention Congressional “borrowing”.
What was most interesting to me in what Santorum said last night was that since we are in debt we need more money to pay it off. Yes. But, isn’t he for continuing the Bush tax cuts? Why? For the same reason that Newt’s plan is so good. It sees that growing personal income by incentivizing investment is a huge step toward more government income and cutting national borrowing.
Consider this. We spend money for people to sit on their butts at home. Why not direct the money toward training and education?
The libertarian side of me says: “We shouldn’t be spending the money in the first place!” But the conservative side of me says: “We can’t just shut welfare off like a light. We have to grow ourselves out of its utility.”
One of Newt’s arguments is that the American people won’t simply accept a sudden, tumultuous change like that; he cites ObamaCare (aka RomneyCare USA) as an example. In the long run, the libertarian side wins, but it’s the conservative side that gets us there.
I watched the debate and thought that Newt was the clear winner. I would vote for Newt, Santorum or Perry but I am loathe to vote for Romney or Paul. For a humorous look at Ron Paul supporters see the following.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EQSOwgWG1c&lc=ZI_b0GDDKQGi4q8lUFD0DdpgXVDwhWAYMEIsVM_y0aE&context=C352db29ADOEgsToPDskK7H7pNdpm5ec8yg-wU06Bk
Newt condescending? Pompous? A bit too much?
Try this guy:
WASHINGTON — Imagine how tiresome it would be to have, at Christmas, a houseguest of whom your spouse disapproves and who you have met only twice before, the first time 23 years ago (annoyingly, your guest does not remember the meeting), the second time four months ago, for a few hours, out of town, on business. Imagine that the houseguest invites himself to your home, stays almost three weeks and one morning early on during his stay he summons your butler (you don’t have one? pity) and issues the following ukase:
“Now, Fields, we had a lovely dinner last night but I have a few orders for you. We want to leave here as friends, right? So I need you to listen. One, I don’t like talking outside my quarters; two, I hate whistling in the corridors; and three, I must have a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French champagne and 90-year old brandy before I go to sleep at night.”
Furthermore, this Guest from Hell declares that for breakfast he requires hot “eggs, bacon or ham and toast” and “two kinds of cold meats with English mustard and two kinds of fruit plus a tumbler of sherry.” You would be forgiven for asking your guest if he had been born in a palace.
He who so firmly addressed President Franklin Roosevelt’s butler Alonzo Fields 64 Christmases ago was, in fact, born in Blenheim Palace, England’s gift to the first Duke of Marlborough. And if no whistling and lots of sherry and whisky would help the duke’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Winston Churchill, function, stop whistling and pour liberally. There is a war to win.
The story of this December 1941 visit is told by two Canadians, David Bercuson and Holger Herwig, in an entertaining book with an idiotic subtitle, “One Christmas in Washington: The Secret Meeting Between Roosevelt and Churchill that Changed the World.” Secret meeting? It was about as secret as a circus, featuring a press conference with FDR and a speech to a joint session of Congress in which Churchill said: “I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my own.” But the meeting did change the world by constructing the machinery of cooperation that led to the defeat of the Axis.
How ancient it now seems, 1941. The city of Washington had 15,000 outdoor privies. German U-boats sank 432 ships in the Atlantic. In August FDR could deceive everyone, including the Secret Service, for a really secret meeting with Churchill — their only previous meeting had been at a London dinner in 1918 — at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. In the days after Pearl Harbor, some of the antiaircraft guns on the White House were wooden fakes — real ones were scarce. On his voyage, sometimes through 40-foot waves, to his Christmas visit with FDR, Churchill watched American movies, including “Santa Fe Trail,” starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Ronald Reagan.
FDR greeted Churchill in Washington in a black limousine the Treasury Department had confiscated from a tax evader named Al Capone. Churchill met here with Adm. Ernest King, commander in chief of the U.S. fleet, who had served in the Spanish-American War, and with Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold, the head of the Army Air Forces, who in 1911 received flight training in Dayton, Ohio, from the Wright brothers.
What could have been the most important event of Churchill’s almost three weeks in America was not known until his doctor published his memoirs in 1966: Churchill suffered a heart attack while straining to open a stuck window in his White House bedroom. Had it been fatal, that could have changed the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt disapproved of Churchill the imperialist, but on Christmas Day 1941 she, he and the president attended Washington’s Foundry Methodist Church, the second iteration of a church founded by Henry Foxall, who in 1812 vowed that he would build a church as a thanksgiving offering if the British did not destroy his cannon foundry when they took Washington and burned the White House.
Christmas Day was the birthday of Gen. Sir John Dill, chief of the Imperial General Staff, so a cake was found and adorned with a set of American and British flags which, Dill discovered when he removed them, were made in Japan. This occasioned laughter, at a time when that, like much else, was scarce.”
Great story! Thanks for taking the time to post it.
Now there was a honey badger, eh logos?
Give me a honey badger over some winner of “Survivor: PC Gauntlet Island” any day of the week.
LukeHandCool (who wants future generations to look back at today’s leaders as being just as colorful as previous times … the bicycle-helmet-wearing Obama, careful not to get any boo-boos bicycling around Martha’s Vineyard, will make a very boring read in the future. And who has never seen a single episode of “Survivor,” so he hopes the reference made sense … and who would just add … give me a feisty honey badger, or else just let me curl up in a fetal position of defeat alone in peace).
Yes I have posted before that Newt is America’s WC circa 1936- now entering 1937. T
If America thinks that a 1938 is coming then Newt is your man . Palin could do even better. What Newt has in learning & intellect Palin has in warrior instinct. Palin nailed everything about Obama in 2008.
At present Hillary = Chamberlain & Obama = the abdicated ( in reality thrown out) pro -nazi effeminate despised King. THank heavens for that American divorcee.
Things were mighty grim & WC had spent years fighting the nazi sympathetic elites. Sound familiar?
Another Fox debate and NOT ONE question about Obamacare.
Mitt Romney’s candidacy and the establishment’s shilling for him have been a godsend for Obamacare.
I don’t care who tells me to line up behind the Greasball Gypsy Princess-Rush, DeMint, Palin, do your worst-I will not vote for the death of conservatism over my remaining years.
If the TEAs can’t draw the line against the weakest Dimmi they will ever see and demand better than the GOP we deserve the Greater Depression.
Listening to Rush….he’s loving Newt’s answers 🙂
You have part of the question, but not the whole thing.
Who do you want taking on Obama, the Honey Badger or the kitten?
We do not have any doubt what most of the base wants. We want someone who will actually stand up and fight against the Enemy. May not win every battle, but at least has a chance of winning some. Someone for whom preemptive surrender is not the only tactic they know.
Not someone who barks for a little while and then goes off in a corner to do things just because he can. Since 2010, however, since when has the Institutional Republican Party given an obese rodent’s nether regions about what WE want?
We know by where their time, money, words, and efforts which the Party wants. They want something that can be put on a poster with the caption “I can haz cheezeburger?”; and are calling Animal Control to remove anything more aggressive.
How much longer will we let them speak in our name?
Subotai Bahadur
The NSFW honey badger video was hilarious! I hadn’t seen that before. Thanks for posting that link.
When the video mentioned that other animals sometimes swoop in to steal the honey badger’s kills, I thought it was funnily analogous to how the GOP often scavenges off Newt’s coattails and likes to ungratefully laud itself for victories that Newt actually lead.
Check out my Update to the post, the guy who created the Honey Badger Don’t Care video is pitching it as a TV series.
Ron Paul Huddles with Loyal Supporters in Wake of South Carolina Debate Face-Plant
Commenter from the above link by RR:
“Paul’s voice drives me nuts. He sounds like a screech owl suffering from acid reflux.”
lol
And then scottinwisconsin posts anonymously.
Romney’s advisors are already floating trial balloons today about Romney skipping the Florida debates, to which they have not yet committed….
“Run away! Run away!”
“Well, we’ll not risk another frontal assault. That rabbit’s dynamite!”
[…] Who do you want taking on Obama, the honey badger or the kitten? Share:EmailFacebookStumbleUponDiggReddit This entry was posted in Government and Politics and tagged honey badgers, honey-badger candidate, Kitten or honey badger?, most fearless animal on the planet, Newt Gingrich, Obama by TeeJaw. Bookmark the permalink. […]
Newt didn’t win any fans? I’m willing to bet he did. Romney remains my favorite candidate, but Newt won that debate hands down and made me more confident in his abilities as a potential nominee. You had to have your eyes closed and your ears plugged to not think Newt did will last night.
This was supposed to be a reply to scottinwisconsin.
Too late. Scotty’s out to lunch.
No he isn’t….he’s in the infirmary from injuries sustained while trying to wrestle you back onto the transformer platform when you changed your mind.
If you haven’t watched any of Newt’s speeches, you might enjoy them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5hTcujevLE
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303686-1 (starts at 3:00)
There’s no doubt Newt is gifted. But he went intensely negative after so much posturing on being positive and conversational. If he had stayed positive, despite being hammered by other negative attacks, I might have believed he was a new and improved Newt. And he might have been an attractive future candidate for Senator in Georgia. Expediency rules the New Newt just like it did the Old Newt — principled beliefs get lots of talk and too little walk with him.
Yeah. Newt’s a bad guy because he defended himself against multi-million dollar contumelious tripe from a progressive squish.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Newt’s been in politics for decades. Negative ads are expected. His pledge to stay positive was shortsighted, though most find his debate answers insightful.
Newt is uneven and unsteady. Santorum is consistent and steady.
Santorum 2012!
@ Mark30339. Were you asleep for a month? First he had little money. Second we was under merciless and mostly unfair attack from so-called “friendly conservative” pundits, as well as WMD’s camp, with all of them spouting negative stuff. He was forced into taking retaliatory shots and now he’s the one who’s wrong? Makes as much sense as some of Obummmers speeches. The POV you support may be a little too dainty for politics.
Definitely a win for Gingrich, probably his best debate – the longer format gives a chance for more in-depth answers.
As far as the general election is concerned, there will be one or two debates, but Obama is never going to agree to long answers: his modus operandi on difficult questions is to run out the clock, he has used this in every debate he was in, why would he inconvenience himself, especially against someone like Newt who thrives on the explication of his ideas?
How many hours of the campaign from Labor Day to Election Day will be spent in televised debates, do you suppose? And how many examining all the “baggage” Newt admits he brings along?
Of course, he always has that appeal to the middle class with his $1.6 million earned from not lobbying, and will bring in the family values voters with his ability to cheat on two wives with his employees. Well, so far – but who doesn’t keep a $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany’s “just in case,” eh?
Those are fair points, but some of these debate responses are taking on a life of their own. If Obummer doesn’t “debate” Newt [saying he were the candidate] these You Tube classics would be played and replayed over and over again in lieu of actual campaigning. In my book Obummer would be forced into debating Newt more often than WMR just to keep the “face time” ratio somewhat even.
I know WMR has this huge war chest of campaign funds. But he lacks the media attention multiplying factor of Newt and hence would need more media buys. Not saying Newt would run a cheaper campaign, just that winning with him would be less expensive than we Mitt.
Oh Noes! Another golfer! Newt shot a hole in Juan..
[[[groan]]]]
🙂 I gotta’ million of ’em and they are all just as bad.
Umm, maybe worse..
Gonna start calling you El Sad.
j/k
Now THAT is funny H.H.
I’ve supported Newt and Perry for years …. nice to meet all the new bandwagon riders 🙂
So when the ride gets ruff again i hope you all hold on better this time !!!
Some people like going off-road.