The case against Mitt is altogether clear and need not be
repeated here except to say that he is the conservative of convenience, whose
moderate to liberal views are explicit in any number of interviews and campaign
ads from the recent past, and who continues to embrace a government-run
healthcare program and individual mandate.
The case against Newt is much more complex, but equally
damning. He, more than any other candidate, sells himself as the Reagan conservative.
In nearly every debate, he touts himself as Reagan’s longtime fellow soldier
and the heir to carry the Reagan torch. This song appeals to conservatives, and
every time Newt sings it, he picks up a few more supporters. Clearly, the
Reagan song sells.
It is precisely Newt’s claim to wear the Reagan mantle that
imperils the good ship SS Reagan and our conservative movement. There are three
issues which puts our ship in peril if we put Newt at the helm.
All Over the Place
First, although Newt has done much to advance the
conservative agenda, his conservatism is more characteristically erratic. He
has been wrong on the four key issues of conservatism during the Obama
administration: 1) global warming/cap and trade; 2) illegal immigration; 3) the
bailouts and the porkulus; and 4) government mandates for healthcare. The more
time that passes from the era of Reagan, the further that Newt drifts from
Reagan conservatism, and the more Newt seems to affirm that the era of Reagan
is over. This is why Newt and Mitt debate over minuscule issues which hardly
differentiate themselves from each other—they are so much alike, and in these
squabbles, Newt reinforces the notion that he is more of a Rockefeller
Republican than a Reagan Republican.
The Future is the Past
Secondly, Newt is prone to self-implosion. Part of this is a
matter of him not being a principled leader, and all that is entailed therein.
Nowhere is this better seen than in Newt’s time as Speaker of the House. Within
two years of his coming to the Speakership, it was conservatives in his own
party that led a coup against him. This cannot be explained as a reaction to
Newt shaking up the establishment. Those were our own conservatives who weighed
Newt’s leadership and found him seriously wanting, and they did so even before
the ethics charges were made.
Under this rubric of Newt’s failure in principled leadership
is that he drew lines in the sand, making tough stands on conservative issues, and
exposing us to considerable liability. This could have been good, but when the
moment of victory was at hand, Newt would blink. This hurt our movement time
and again by saddling us with all the liability of taking a tough stance without
achieving any of the benefits of victory. Whenever Newt stood toe to toe with Clinton on high stakes
issues, Newt blinked, whether it was the impeachment trial or shutting down the
government. After the shutting down of the government, Newt was more or less a
whipped pup whenever he needed to make a stand against Clinton. Within two years, Newt’s
favorability ratings tanked at 13%, which probably is still the record low for
any congressman—and this plagues his polling to this day.
Newt took the Republican caucus down with him. Newt likes to
spin his record as one that retained a Republican majority. This is a faux claim
of victory. The reality is that, due to the House Bank Scandal and Clinton’s overplaying of
his hand in implementing his leftward agenda, a huge Republican majority was
swept into office in 1994. This majority was expected to increase significantly
in 1998’s “six year itch” of the election cycle in which the incumbent
president’s party usually loses seats in Congress in his sixth year in office. This
expectation was especially high for Republicans since it came near the height
of the Lewinsky scandal. Instead, Republicans lost a large number of seats and
just barely held on to their majority. We suffered in the Senate as well,
trading long time Republicans Al D’Amato and Lauch Faircloth for liberals Chuck
Shumer and John Edwards. Freshmen and sophomore Republicans who had the
potential of becoming longterm incumbents and preventing the Pelosi takeover in
2008 were sent home in defeat. Newt’s poor leadership in 1998 set up not only
the Pelosi victory in 2008, but Obamacare in 2009.
Seeing that he lost the confidence of his own caucus, not to
mention the ethics charges, Newt resigned, and it was clearly a resignation of
disgrace from which one could recover only by a combination of forgetting and
rewriting history.
As Speaker, Newt gained a well-deserved reputation of being unfocused,
undisciplined, erratic, volatile, unaccountable, unresponsive, and incapable of
nurturing important initiatives to fruition. These flaws have all been seen at
one point or another in his current campaign, including this week’s promise to
have a permanent moon base by the end of his second term, and his failure to
congratulate Romney in his concession speech. One can hardly repress the
expectation that Newt will self-destruct even prior to the convention, let
alone under the pressure of a protracted campaign against Obama, or under the
pressure of his own presidency. The problem with self-destruction is that it also
causes massive collateral damage—the lifeblood of the conservative movement
would be sucked out by our own nominee who did the same thing back in the mid
90s.
Much more could be said about Newt’s failed leadership during
his brief tenure as Speaker, but there is a third issue which puts our ship in
peril if Newt is at the helm.
Withering on the Vine under Fire
Let us assume that Newt manages to secure the Republican
nomination. This will put him toe to toe to Obama. One wonders how Newt might
stand in high stakes situations with Obama when he did not fare well in similar
situations with Bill Clinton. Moreover, of the Republican candidates, Newt is
the most vulnerable to attack from the Democrats. If Newt can so easily be
beaten by Mitt’s negative ads, how much easier will it be for Democrats to do
the same. Democrats will have enough money to air nationwide commercials daily,
and Newt will give them a new topic for attack every day.
Thus, if Newt becomes the nominee, all our energy will be
diverted from advocating and defending our conservative agenda, and allocated
instead for an all out attempt to protect Newt. In an election when Obama
should be the issue, Newt will become the issue. Frankly, there are enough bags
in Newt’s entourage of baggage to dominate the daily news cycle for the rest of
the year. Anything from check kiting in the House Banking Scandal, to his
serial adultery and 3 marriages, to hypocrisy in pressing the Clinton
impeachment “over sex,” to lobbying, and to his attacks on capitalism, we will
be so busy this fall circling the wagons to protect Newt that we will not be
able to mount an effective offensive against Obama.
Neither Newt nor Mitt: Both are Equally Flawed
These three problems with Newt nomination make it impossible
for Santorum supporters to vote for Newt in the remaining primaries. If
Santorum were suddenly whisked away by aliens so that his supporters could not
vote for him, they would be left in a lurch. In this year of the conservative
when, of all elections, we need to elect a conservative, we simply cannot
stomach voting for Mitt the moderate. But at the same time, even if we assume that
Newt is more committed to conservative core values than Mitt (which is an altogether
uncertain assumption), we hesitate to hand over the helm to him, for his
persona is likely to hit critical mass as to implode like a black hole, taking
the whole conservative movement and the SS Reagan with it.
The Uncompromised Candidate
However, I fear that if Newt is the nominee, his negatives
will be so high that there won’t be much of a contest in the general election,
and the good ship SS Reagan will languish at sea while this American land is
ravished by Hurricane Barack. Remember, as Rush said this week, “I have to remind
you, again, that Gingrich debated John Kerry on Global Warming at one point and
they agreed on practically every point. Nobody is innocent. Everybody is guilty
of some transgression somewhere against Conservatism (suspenseful pause) except
Santorum.”
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