Remember how Newt Gingrich so reverently and so often spoke about the need to be a good steward of the public’s money? Odd but the principle of fiscal sanity doesn’t seem to apply to Mr. Gingrich himself. Of late it’s come to the fore that Newt Gingrich is costing the American taxpayer $40 Thousand dollars a day for Secret Service protection according to Liz Marlantes of the Christian Science Monitor, who appeared on this morning’s Chris Matthews Show.
 
Gingrich, who’s campaign for the Republican nomination is effectively over, a fact that’s obvious to everyone save Newt himself, has now come under fire from tax activist groups as well who can’t help but point out the fiscal irresponsibility of Gingrich’s continued use of Secret Service protection: “For a guy who for all intents and purpose, and isn’t doing a lot of campaigning, needs to suspend his Secret Service detail,” said David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance in Alexandria, Va. “He needs to do what’s right for the taxpayer and say, ‘I’m done with Secret Service protection…Gingrich has the “Camp David” package of Secret Service, which includes but is not limited to six cars, six federal agents, four state troopers at a campaign stop, four local agents when the candidate arrives and a press agent if there is a press bus, a person with knowledge of the Gingrich campaign said. Although the cost to keep the Secret Service detail on the Gingrich campaign couldn’t be determined, it includes agents’ meals, hotel stays, transportation and salary. The person with knowledge of the Secret Service and the campaign said Gingrich’s protection might be helping him stay in race because the cost is borne by taxpayers.” What that last sentence means is that there are numerous and sundry expenses that the Gingrich campaign need not lay out due to being protected by the Secret Service. These outlays would include costs related to: vehicular transport, drivers, gas, advance staff to prepare the next campaign stop for the candidates arrival as well as private security for the candidate which costs $50 thousand dollars a month. Thus in effect taxpayer money flowing into the Gingrich campaign via the Secret Service is in a large part keeping this moribund effort alive and sputtering forward all on your dime.
 
But its not just the American taxpayer who’s getting stiffed by Newt Gingrich, its many a small business owner as well. Now isn’t that odd, that Gingrich, who has so often extolled on the virtues and importance of small business would have no problem leaving these same people holding the bag as a result of his failure to pay bills for services rendered? Quoting Dan Eggen of the Washington Post ” Newt Gingrich, whose quixotic presidential bid has been dogged by financial problems, racked up nearly $3 million in new debt for private jet flights, security consultants and travel costs in March even as his campaign teetered on the edge of collapse, according to new disclosures. The former House speaker entered April with $4.3 million in total debt, up from $1.5 million the month before, according to reports filed late Friday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC)…The disclosures outline what has become a typical scenario for Gingrich in his topsy-turvy, year-long campaign for the White House, which nearly imploded last summer amid runaway spending and staff defections. Financial problems also have swallowed the private consulting empire he built after leaving the House in the late 1990s, including a private health-care think tank that filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.” So not only has Gingrich shortchanged a number of private business, he’s also destroyed much of his own business enterprise as well. As such I think its safe to say that its a God send that this political charlatan isn’t about to secure the Republican nomination for president, least he be elected president. Based on this self inflicted personal financial debacle can you just imagine what kind of damage he might wreck on the nation as a whole? One things been proven out by Gingrich’s latest political misadventure and that is that he’s no fiscal Einstein.
 
In the final analysis this latest Gingrich denouement is but a sad commentary on the politics of ego and vanity as well as the poisonous effect of Citizens United which allowed a single contributor, Sheldon Adelson, to fuel the egotistical drive of a man who was easily the most unsavory candidate, in terms of ethical and marital trespasses, of the entire Republican field. Perhaps Newt Gingrich should take some of his speeches on fiscal responsibility, stand before a mirror, and reread his own words while periodically looking into that mirror so as to come to terms with his own hypocrisy. I think its fair to say that Mr. Gingrich’s rare second act in American Politics is at an end, save for his next cable news gig. Such is the pathos of ego, vanity and ill conceived fiscal folly.
 
Steven J. Gulitti 
 
4/22/12
 
 
Sources:
 
 
Gingrich Urged to End Secret Service Detail at Taxpayer Expense; http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/gingrich-urged-to-end-secret-service-detail-at-taxpayer-expense/
 
Newt Gingrich goes deeper in debt as campaign disintegrates; http://bangordailynews.com/2012/04/22/politics/newt-gingrich-goes-deeper-in-debt-as-campaign-disintegrates/

Arizona Senator John McCain appearing on this morning’s “Meet the Press” told commentator David Gregory that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was one of the worst decisions that the high court has ever rendered labeling it naive and ill conceived. McCain pointed out, as an example, how one individual, in this case Newt Gingrich’s benefactor Sheldon Adelson has totally distorted the primary process by propping up a candidate that has little real appeal and no chance of winning the nomination. This in turn has contributed to a tainting the entire process of the Republican primaries and hurting the G.O.P.’s brand among the critically important independent voter.
 
In the analysis of the show’s moderator David Gregory Mitt Romney is a weak candidate that can’t put away a field of weak contenders and seal the deal on the nomination. He sees this as a direct result of the influence of the amounts of money pouring into the campaign by a handful of super rich donors who are distorting the wishes of ordinary Americans. Political columnist Bob Woodward stated that we have not seen this degree of political distortion in our politics since the age of the Robber Barons.
 
The great irony of all of this is that those on the far right may be faced with voting for Mitt Romney, hardly a bona fide conservative even though he’s parroting their talking points, because the super rich donors have long since swamped the true conservative candidates who really represented the beliefs of the ultra conservative wing of the G.O.P. What’s even more ironic is that it’s conservatives who usually complain about activist judges rendering decisions that distort the will of the people and now they themselves may be victims of that same judicial activism as a result of Citizens United.
 
Is this anyone’s idea of popular democracy?
 
S.J. Gulitti
3/18/12

Well there you have it, another onetime Tea Party favorite has dropped out of the 2012 race to be America’s president thereby shrinking the field of “viable” candidates that a Tea Party true believer could vote for this coming November. In fact one should even ask the question of whether or not there is a candidate still in the race that a true Tea Party member could legitimately support. Political columnist E.J. Dionne, to some degree, asked a similar question in: “Where are the Republican populists?” Quoting Dionne: “Members of the Tea Party insisted they were turning the GOP into a populist, anti-establishment bastion. Social conservatives have long argued that values and morals matter more than money. Yet in the end, the corporate and economically conservative wing of the Republican Party always seems to win.” That will leave members of the movement with a truly tough choice this November: Is there any candidate left in the race for which a real Tea Party supporter could vote without a compromising of one’s principles? Unless a third party candidate favorable to the Tea Party emerges, not exactly a development that would guarantee victory, the choices available to Tea Party members will be reduced to voting for a moderate Republican in Mitt Romney, not voting, giving up on the presidency and hoping that a rear guard electoral effort will maintain the House Tea Party Caucus or voting for Obama as a protest. The last choice is something the true believers would never do.

Presently it appears that rank and file Tea Party members have already started to compromise their principles. A recent Boston Globe article, “Tea Party’s opposition to Romney weakens” states: “The Tea Party and its dislike of the Massachusetts health care plan and Romney’s moderate record as Bay State governor were considerable impediments to his candidacy throughout 2011. But none of the Tea Party’s darlings – Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, or Gingrich – has been able to sustain a surge, highlighting limitations of a nascent movement that couldn’t extend its 2010 congressional successes onto the presidential stage…The latest polls suggest a good number of Tea Party supporters are getting behind the party’s most likely nominee [Romney], despite qualms about his record, because their overriding goal is removing Obama from the White House.” Likewise, just as the G.O.P.’s 2012 field is unsettled so are members of the Tea Party when it comes to who they currently support: “CBS reports that voters who identify with the Tea Party movement are similarly divided, with 29 percent supporting Romney, 28 percent supporting Gingrich, 18 percent supporting Santorum, and 12 percent supporting Paul.”

The fact that almost one third of the Tea Party members are backing Romney shows just how far principles on the hard right have eroded at this point in time. Likewise real conservatives would take umbrage with Newt Gingrich’s claim that he is the only true conservative in the race. Gingrich has a track record of clashing with conservatives on many issues. He called Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget reform ideas “right-wing social engineering”, has supported health care insurance mandates, been rather liberal in his views on accommodating illegal immigrants, admitted that climate change is real and needs to be addressed and even criticized the far right publicly on the issue of ideological purity saying: “You can have a very, very intense movement at 20 percent. You can’t govern. To govern, you’ve got to get 50 percent plus one after the recount.” And now in what could be a Herman Cain like moment Gingrich’s second wife is going public in her criticism of him in an expose that is hardly flattering and which will do nothing to endear him to social conservatives, particularly women.

Thus for the Tea Partiers we’re down to just two alternatives, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. If Ron Paul is anything it’s unelectable. His isolationist stance on foreign involvement and libertarian views on drug use are an anathema to the Republican establishment and most likely to the majority of the electorate as well. Paul’s libertarian views can be summarized as follows: “Paul believes: Gays should be allowed to marry; America’s foreign policy contributed to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks; U.S. defence spending should be slashed by 15%; Drugs like marijuana, heroin and cocaine should be decriminalized, and the United States should not come to Israel’s aid if it starts a shooting war with Iran.” With views like these we can effectively dismiss Ron Paul as a serious candidate for president.

That leaves us with Santorum and his acceptability to the Tea Party. One problem Santorum has always had is that he’s been a one trick pony, his overarching theme has been one of social values, something that helped him tremendously in Iowa. “CBS News entrance polling showed that Tea Party conservatives who participated in the caucuses largely supported Santorum. Among those who said they support the Tea Party movement, 29 percent caucused for him, compared with 19 percent for Paul and 19 percent for Mitt Romney.” But Iowa is atypical of the larger political landscape, its whiter, more evangelical, less urban and less affected by the Great Recession due to a strong demand for its agricultural produce. Just how well do the Tea Partiers know Rick Santorum? Since Iowa it’s come out that he was a master at earmarking federal largesse for western Pennsylvania, supported Medicare Part D, was a regular supporter of foreign aid and voted for No Child Left Behind, a federal program that “greatly expanded the federal government’s role in education.” Referencing a Ron Paul advertisement, Santorum is “another serial hypocrite who can’t be trusted.” It targets Santorum for voting five times to raise the debt ceiling, voting in favor of the notorious “bridge to nowhere,” and taking lobbyist cash, among other things.”

A good synopsis of Rick Santorum’s career on Capitol Hill can be found in Sheryl Stolberg’s recent article “Santorum Rose Quickly From Reformer to Insider” Quoting Stolberg: “But a look at the arc of Mr. Santorum’s political career, from his days as a fresh-faced College Republican to his bruising defeat for a third term in 2006, reveals a side of Mr. Santorum beyond that of reformer and abortion foe. He emerges as a savvy operator and sharp tactician, a climber who became a member of the Washington establishment that he had once railed against.” Thus can any true believer in the principles of the Tea Party movement consider Rick Santorum to be a bona fide upholder of the movement’s agenda? Not really. Does Santorum fit the description of a Beltway outsider who can be trusted to champion the agenda of the Tea Party movement? Not in the least, that is, if you want to be honest about whom Santorum is and what his past track record is all about. Once you peel the onion down a few layers past the exterior of standing up for family values what you’re left with is a professional politician and that’s hardly in line with the general tenor of the Tea Party movement.

Conservative columnist David Brooks points out much of what comprises Santorum’s world view is not exactly congruent with Tea Party principles. ”His worldview is not individualistic. His book, “It Takes a Family,” was infused with the conservative wing of Catholic social teaching. It was a broadside against Barry Goldwater-style conservatism in favor of one that emphasized family and social solidarity. While in Congress, he was a leader in nearly every serious piece of antipoverty legislation…He is not a representative of the corporate or financial wing of the party. Santorum certainly wants to reduce government spending. He certainly wants tax reform. But he goes out of his way in his speeches to pick fights with the “supply-siders.” Now many on the far right consider Brooks a “progressive” Republican but few would say the same of Erick Erickson who runs the ultra-conservative political blog RedState and who’s article “What a Big Government Conservative Looks Like” states: “Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it.  He is a big government conservative.  Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state.  In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state… Santorum is a conservative. He is. But his conservatism is largely defined by his social positions and the ends to which government would be deployed. But he has chosen as the means to those conservative ends bigger government. We see big government conservatives most clearly when they deviate from the tireless efforts of people like Mike Pence and Jim DeMint and the others who were willing to oppose George W. Bush’s expansion of the welfare state. Rick Santorum was not among them.”

So with the abovementioned in mind, am I going out on a limb in pointing out that the Tea Party movement is effectively without a viable candidate for 2012? I don’t thinks so, not if by “viable” you mean a candidate that will put the principles of limiting big government’s influence in our daily lives at the forefront of their policy agenda and who actually has a chance at appealing to that vast raft of independent voters and being elected. If the CBS poll numbers are indicative of anything they show that three quarters of the Tea Party movement’s respondents are supporting a candidate other than one who espouses true Tea Party principles in either positions taken on past policy or personal behavior. Which get us back to E.J. Dionne: “Think about Romney’s rise in light of the overheated political analysis of 2010 that saw a Republican Party as being transformed by the Tea Party legions who, in alliance with an overlapping group of social and religious conservatives, would take the party away from the establishmentarians.

Certainly some of the movement’s failures can be attributed to a flawed set of competitors and the split on the right, especially Paul’s ability to siphon off a significant share of the Tea Party vote. That has made a consolidation of its forces impossible…But there is another possibility: that the GOP never was and never can be a populist party, that the term was always being misapplied, and that enough Republicans are quite comfortable with a Harvard-educated private-equity specialist.” If E.J. Dionne is correct, and I believe he is, then the members of the Tea Party movement have a rendevous with reality in Novemeber that will leave then feeling jilted with regard to having a true candidate in the race and, if a Republican wins the presidency, with having that old sinking feeling of having been used for their votes with little propsect of seeing their agenda advanced by the professional politicians who run the Republican Party.

Steven J. Gulitti

1/20/2012

 Sources:

Perry suspends campaign, endorses Gingrich; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdvje9Fr-uY

What doomed Rick Perry’s campaign; http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/politics/perry-rise-fall/index.html

Where are the Republican populists; http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/romneys-rise-puts-the-lie-to-a-populist-gop/2012/01/18/gIQAoPqG9P_story.html

Tea Party’s opposition to Romney weakens; http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/01/19/opposition-from-tea-party-begins-fade-mitt-romney-gains-support-more-conservatives/JrU4fS9Gy5BF44dEfEkQoM/story.html

GOP Race Remains Fractured, Tea Party Supporters Divided: http://www.decodedscience.com/gop-race-remains-fractured-tea-party-supporters-divided/9673

Gingrich Has Record Of Clashing With The Right; http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142868567/gingrich-has-record-of-clashing-with-the-right

Newt Gingrich wanted ‘open marriage,’ ex-wife says; http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/politics/gingrich-wife/index.html

Paul’s candidacy thrives on the unconventional; http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Paul+candidacy+thrives+unconventional/5776016/story.html

Can Rick Santorum claim the Tea Party mantle?; http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57354522-503544/can-rick-santorum-claim-the-tea-party-mantle/

Santorum Rose Quickly From Reformer to Insider; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/us/politics/santorum-rose-quickly-from-reformer-to-insider.html?_r=1&hp

Workers of the World, Unite! http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/opinion/workers-of-the-world-unite.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

What a Big Government Conservative Looks Like; http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/01/09/what-a-big-government-conservative-looks-like-2/

Rick Santorum and the Tea Party; http://thepoliticalzealot.com/2012/01/09/rick-santorum-and-the-tea-party/

It’s an interesting fact that Mitt Romney, after outspending both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum and the rest of the Republican field by millions of dollars, can’t seem to break out above a ceiling of around a quarter of the conservative base. Pollster John Zogby and others have made this point in the immediate aftermath of the Iowa Caucuses: “This was the percentage of the vote the former governor received in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, a figure he never superseded in pre-caucus polls nor in the actual vote in 2012. It was enough for a close race but it shows some weaknesses in his bid for the White House. For starters, there are currently three co-equal strains in this year’s GOP — the libertarian/anti-statist wing represented by Ron Paul; the Christian Conservative wing that now belongs to Rick Santorum; and the Establishment/moderate conservative wing that favors Romney. Paul’s base is comprised of many young and first-time voters and doesn’t seem likely to support Romney (or perhaps any other Republican). The pro-family Santorumites just don’t like or trust Romney.” So after having run in Iowa during the last presidential election cycle and having had another three years to prepare for 2012, after spending millions more than his rivals and being backed up by a powerful Super Pac, Romney is back were he was after Iowa’s 2008 Caucuses. So what does that mean for Romney going forward? Well according to Zogby: ” after Iowa, an angry and scorned Newt Gingrich is aiming his guns at the whites of Romney’s eyes in South Carolina. Romney could possibly survive the January 21 southern state primary, but it is hard to see how he puts together a severely fractured party. He had a good showing in Iowa, but he ended up having to spend a lot of money, energy, and negative advertising to get to 25%.”
 
And then there’s, among numerous other articles on the topic, this from Rolling Stone: “Call it The Romney Ceiling. And its durability nearly led to an astonishing victory in Iowa by the raging mysogynist, racist, Islamophobe, and gay baiter Santorum — who was last seen on the national stage getting trounced by 18 points in his failed 2006 senate reelection bid in Pennsylvania. Rick Santorum is the bottom of the GOP’s not-Mitt barrel — a C-Lister par excellence. Yet he lost to one of the best funded candidates in the history of politics by a mere eight votes…By all rights, Mitt Romney should be on a glide path to the nomination today. But at this moment, his candidacy seems equally likely to spark a fratricidal war inside the GOP — one that could even spill over into a third-party bid. They say that Democrats fall in love with their candidates, while Republicans fall in line. That narrative is busted in 2012.”
 
What then is the follow on to all of the aforementioned? Lets consider the following: Romney is a Republican progressive by any objective yardstick and the Ron Paul crowd will most likely never support him. Santorum’s supporters are very pro-family and not likely to support Ron Paul’s libertarian views on gays and drugs. Santorum has plenty of his own baggage that has as of yet not been subject to scrutiny by either the liberal media or his political rivals. That scrutiny may do to Santorum what the same scrutiny did to Newt Gingrich just a week or so ago. Mitt Romney has plenty of Super Pac cash to smother Santorum in negative ads going forward just as he did Gingrich in Iowa. Few in the Republican establishment, especially the NeoCons, are likely to buy into Ron Paul’s isolationist or anti-Israel positions. What we may have here is an intra-party crack up in the making with one of two likely outcomes, both of which could herald the end of the much hoped for and stalled conservative revolution.