by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Newt\u00a0Gingrich<\/a>\u00a0soaring in the polls 90 days ago \u2014 with an inspired strategy of critiquing Obama, reprimanding the left-wing media during the debates, playing down his ego while showing mastery of the issues, and calling for an end to internecine bickering \u2014 stumbled for a while under the natural negative ads that always target the perceived front runner of the moment. Did he not expect that?<\/p>\n Then under the normal barrage he apparently got fed up, quit trying to offer a defense against the negative ads (which he could have done), junked his previously successful strategy, went ballistic \u2014 and reminded us why we once long ago had found him grating \u2014 and now in full-fledged Obama style is making the redistributionist case against excessive private profiting (\u201clooting\u201d) in the marketplace. A pretty amazing thing to see the entrepreneurial Gingrich playing Oliver Stone to Romney\u2019s supposed Gordon Gecko \u2014 given that a magnanimous and above-the-fray Gingrich might well have ridden out the storm and gone the distance with\u00a0Romney<\/a>. What was considered a mistake of not striking back in virulent fashion was probably not, and what is now considered a belated correction in striking back virulently is probably a mistake.<\/p>\n As for the race as of now: On the one hand, we have a president, who is the largest recipient of Wall Street cash in election history (a favorite in particular of Goldman Sachs and BP), the first to renounce public financing in presidential general elections since the progressive law was established almost 40 years ago, whose three chiefs of staff (Emanuel, Daley, Lew) have made millions on Wall Street as fat-cat bankers (JP Morgan\/Citigroup), much of it from the Fannie\/Freddie housing bubble and collapse, who just hired another OMB\/Citigroup revolving door retread in Lew, who is a golf\/Martha\u2019s Vineyard aficionado \u2014 and who is now advancing the\u00a0populist<\/a>\u00a0argument that the 1 Percent have rigged the game and have money and lifestyles the rest of us are denied; on the other hand, arch-conservative\u00a0Newt<\/a>\u00a0Gingrich, who has created a lucrative multimedia empire in D.C,, is trumping that argument by portraying Bain capital as a capitalist cancer.<\/p>\n Stranger than fiction.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner Newt\u00a0Gingrich\u00a0soaring in the polls 90 days ago \u2014 with an inspired strategy of critiquing Obama, reprimanding the left-wing media during the debates, playing down his ego while showing mastery of the issues, and calling for an end to internecine bickering \u2014 stumbled for a while under the natural negative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[146,362],"tags":[12,189,134,32,446,242],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-hy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":986,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-campaign-dictionary\/","url_meta":{"origin":1088,"position":0},"title":"A Campaign Dictionary","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The bogeyman of the Washington insider is often a target of the Gingrich campaign, but we have as yet no definition. To be an \u201cinsider,\u201d should the candidate have served in the federal government for, say, ten years? Should he be currently living\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1062,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/south-carolina-debate-a-perfect-distraction\/","url_meta":{"origin":1088,"position":1},"title":"South Carolina Debate: A Perfect Distraction","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The Race Going into South Carolina The primary race that has just started and should still be wide open is already supposedly almost over \u2014 but still isn\u2019t quite. The conventional wisdom is that Mitt\u00a0Romney\u00a0\u2014 bleeding a bit by the successful, counter-conservative anti-Bain commercials,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":973,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-2012-election-circus-the-acts-the-players-the-hype\/","url_meta":{"origin":1088,"position":2},"title":"The 2012 Election Circus–the Acts, the Players, the Hype","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The Latest Scandals Taxes: What does it matter that Gingrich released one year of his tax records? Any candidate can prep them a year in advance. Were I running for office a year or two down the road, and were I cynical, this year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":996,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fidelity-and-the-presidency\/","url_meta":{"origin":1088,"position":3},"title":"Fidelity and the Presidency","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The news media seem obsessed with the serial affairs of a younger Newt Gingrich back in the last century. The anger of his second of three wives mysteriously became national news on ABC\u2019s\u00a0Nightline\u00a0on the eve of the South Carolina primary. Millions watched Mrs.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-un-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":1088,"position":4},"title":"The Un-Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama\u2019s favorability in the polls fell when he acted like himself \u2014 overexposed, hard-left in his press conferences, and boastful about legislative achievements like Obamacare and a stimulus of more than $1 trillion. Then a strange thing happened. Obama largely went quiet.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "First Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"First Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/first-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1183,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bering-there-the-obama-sequel\/","url_meta":{"origin":1088,"position":5},"title":"Being There–the Obama Sequel","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Rip Van Obama President Obama went into a deep slumber in December. When he woke up this January, he found himself back even in the polls, with neither a press conference nor another overhyped presidential televised address to be heard. Sleep, quiet, and solitude\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1089,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}