A funny thing happened on the way to the 2012 election.
At the risk of being accused of partisan politics, I have never
seen Republicans so afraid of themselves.
A lot of them are not comfortable with Mitt Romney, partly
because he is Mormon, partly because he was governor of,
?gasp,? Massachusetts, the state that not only bleeds blue but
is proud of it, but also because of another issue, which I have
to agree with. He is too darn pretty. He has perfect hair,
perfect teeth, he is just the right height. It is scary.
So they may be concerned that he is an alien.
But as much as Mitt may worry some, traditional Republicans are
scared out of their minds by Newt Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich was once the leader or the new order, but through
a series of, let us say, peccadilloes, he became the match in
the hand of the gasoline attendant. No one knows when it will
be struck and blow the shebang to pieces.
To be fair, Newt Gingrich is a quick mind and a tenacious
campaigner. If he becomes the Republican nominee, by Nov. 6,
President Obama will feel like he went about 100 rounds with
Mike Tyson (back when Mike was a boxer worth watching). He will
hurl every insinuation he can think of at the president,
amplify every minor issue into an international crisis and be
able to take the same when it is tossed back at him.
Newt is tough. He is sharp. He knows the game. But he is Newt
and the top Republicans know and fear that fact.
In Romney, they have a few issues that need sorting out,
especially his history of completely changing his views
whenever it is politically expedient. He proved that in
Massachusetts where people thought they were voting for a
moderate Republican, not liberal like some past Massachusetts
Republicans, but close to the heartbeat of the Bay State. As he
got close to leaving office to step onto a national stage, he
began to appear more and more conservative. In the last
presidential election he was a true moderate-conservative, a
position that got him a ticket home, rather than bearing the
standard of the party.
This time around Mitt is a significant conservative, and that?s
what the Republican leadership is liking about him.
The problem is, Mitt should have won South Carolina. He should
have but Newt stole it from him and now we are in Florida, a
state Mitt should be winning with buckets of votes. Instead, it
is a toss-up going into the Florida primary Tuesday.
Which gets back to my point: Republicans are terrified at what
they have working for them in this campaign. They seemed quite
hopeful a year ago. Partly with the help of the tea party they
were gaining power and feeling like they could kick the
president out of office and insert one of their people. But one
of the problems with the tea party is the candidates who
embraced it either lack the depth needed for a presidential
campaign or are crazier than bed bugs on meth. Unfortunately,
while the tea party may not hold all the hearts of Republicans,
they are at least in the minds of too many potential candidates
who decided they could not reconfigure their standards enough
to win the presidential nomination in the new Republican Party.
I doubt Bob Dole would win the nomination the way things are,
and Bob is a legitimate conservative.
So what we have heading into next week is Mitt Romney trying to
maintain his dignity and keep his distance from Newt, who is
doing his best to pick him up off the ground and body-slam him
to the mat before applying the sleeper hold.
And, of course, the Republican leadership is wondering if they
could dig up Ronald Reagan, extract some DNA, and create a
clone to insert in the rest of the primaries before things get
too out of hand.
See the article here:
GOP leads the way in apoplexy
Residence 
Location 
