Gingrich’S Temperament A Major Stumbling Block For Gop Voters

[Geee]

PjMedia:

Newt Gingrich’s mercurial temperament has been on display since he entered the race for the GOP nomination for president. It helped him in South Carolina when in the last debate before the election, CNN’s John King asked him if he would like to comment on his second former wife’s claim in an interview with ABC that he had approached her about having an open marriage relationship. The response was classic Newt. “No,” he replied, “but I will.” Then he launched into an ad hominem attack on the mainstream media and John King. It resonated with the audience and with voters, and Gingrich won the Palmetto State primary in a landslide.

After that humiliating defeat, Romney went on the offensive. With laser-guided precision, he pummeled Gingrich in Florida with tag lines such as “unhinged” and “Dr. Newt and Mr. Hyde,” hoping that the former House speaker would lose his cool. It worked to perfection. As the Sunshine State campaign drew to a close, Romney said, “He [Gingrich] has been flailing around a bit trying to go after me for one thing or the other. You just watch it and shake your head. It has been kind of painfully revealing to watch.”

 

That was an apt assessment — one to which GOP voters across the nation have been gravitating slowly but surely since the Iowa caucus in early January despite Romney’s well-publicized gaffes about enjoying firing people and the poor not needing help. Romney was suggesting in a not-so-subtle way that Gingrich’s South Carolina victory was a fluke by conjuring up a mental image of the former speaker as a punch-drunk boxer staggering around the ring swinging wildly at nothing in particular and occasionally landing a punch. Romney staffers admitted “that they were pleased with how rattled Gingrich seemed to be.”

 

C. Edmund Wright, a copywriter and consultant for Winning Our Future, a PAC that supports Newt Gingrich and other conservative causes, described Gingrich’s Florida effort as “a childish food fight.” He said,

[F]or some inexplicable reason, he [Gingrich] wiped that campaign gold [from South Carolina] off his hands and abandoned the gold mine. He quickly returned to the tar pit of the food fight with Mitt. And it has been all downhill from there. Frankly, it was stunning to observe.

 

Emmett Tyrrell, founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator, said,

Newt lost support in his last week in Florida because conservatives gave him a closer look. Sure, we loved his one-liners singeing the tail feathers of the liberal media and politicians. Yet, we have to put someone up against President Barack Obama who can win. Moreover, we have to put someone in the White House who can govern. With Newt, we would be explaining his gyrations every few days during the campaign. And in the unlikely event that he should win, we would be spending the next four years apologizing for his extravagance.

[Valin]

Republican voters want a candidate they can count on.

 

And some of what a candidate who will not say and do anything in order to win. Someone who didn't lose to arguably the most disliked Senator in the Republican party. Someone who has actual ideas, not 30 second sound bytes. Someone that Bob Dole, John McCain, don't think is just swell. Someone who's supporters don't call many on the right ignorant rubes. Someone who thinks the Mass. health care system is just swell. And it's probably....defiantly not Mitt!

[Valin]

From the Comments

 

1. steven

It’s time to get over his temperament – he and Santorum are the best candidate for the future of the world during this coming crisis. If Iran was not building nuclear arms, Romney would be fine.

 

JL

 

What has Romney done to earn the voters trust? I don’t mean “talked about”. I mean what has he DONE?

 

I like what Romney is saying. If he does everything he says, it will be wonderful. But talk is cheap. I want to know what he has done to earn my trust?

 

For comparison Gingrich was responsible for the biggest spending cuts and created the only balanced budget since Calvin Coolidge was President in 1929.

 

Now tell me what has Romney done?

 

3. carla

 

Newt is erratic and unfit to be president. His vaunted ‘big ideas’ stem from a superficial fund of knowledge and a shallow intellect. If I have to hear ‘frankly’ and ‘the fact is’ endlessly until November, I will puke. Two out of three wives think that he is a jerk; majority rules.

 

5. Ed Wallis

 

VOTE FOR

Mitt “I Like Firing People” Romney,

Mitt “I’m Not Concerned About the Very Poor” Romney, or

Mitt “Don’t Believe My Record, I’m a true Conservative” Romney.

 

Because GOP Voters don’t see Romney as a problem…

…noooooooooooo………not at all……………../s