by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n The Latest Scandals<\/strong><\/p>\n 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 I would triple my charitable contributions, cut back on freelance writing to lower my income, and trim my deductions \u2014 on the assumption that one transparent year would be proof of thirty out of sight. So to be fair, Gingrich and all the candidates, if we go down this full-disclosure road, should release the last three years of returns. If so, I suggest that Gingrich will have as many tax\/income problems as Romney.<\/p>\n Women: The Marianne Gingrich\u00a0Nightline<\/em>\u00a0tell-all was a bust. In theory, we must sympathize with her: 60-ish, without much income, suffering from MS, forced to watch her ex \u2014 now soaring, both financially and politically, without her and without apparent acknowledgment of her long support for his career that must now be evident in his success \u2014 with insult added to injury as Newt parades around a younger, more attractive third wife as if he were a perpetual honeymooner. But to hear her is almost immediately to wonder, \u201cHmmm, let\u2019s get this straight: you are mad that Mrs. Gingrich III and Newt did to Mrs. Gingrich II what you and Newt did to Mrs. Gingrich I? If you were sick and penniless when he left you, so was the poor first wife whom you once replaced.\u201d<\/p>\n I wish I could believe (because I want to believe) that fidelity is essential in a leader, but unfortunately history tells me that Charles Lindbergh was a better pilot and inspiration than his more moral rivals, that the wayward George S. Patton saved thousands of lives by his brilliance in a way the more admirable but limited Omar Bradley did not, that the randy Bill Clinton was a better president than the devout Jimmy Carter, and that recklessly promiscuous JFK was no worse and probably more effective than loyal Richard Nixon. But marriage has so many variables (the devout husband can be mentally cruel and indifferent, the noble wife can be a shrew, the publicly supportive spouse can privately forgo sex, the faithful husband can be lazy and a leach), and leadership so many contours (natural brilliance, rhetorical flair, stamina, courage), that fidelity in marriage simply cannot quite trump them all. Was the wonderfully devoted Harry Truman a better president than Dwight D. Eisenhower (who once or twice probably strayed with his chaufferess), and if so, was it because he never looked at other women other than Bess? In short, the ABC interview was a dud. It only confirmed that dragging out a 12-year-old story on the eve of an election told us more about\u00a0the morality of ABC<\/a>\u00a0[1] than of present-day Newt Gingrich.<\/p>\n Romney\u2019s money: Cannot Romney explain that, to be blunt, he does not have, and does not need, a regular day job any more? And therefore he does not pay taxes on income? In other words, cannot Mitt say that he once was so skilled or lucky that he made enough to allow him in retirement to either sell assets yearly, or buy and sell from his ample portfolio and therefore be taxed at the capital gains rate? The same unapologetic defiance should apply to Bain. If one devotes his career to winning the good life from taking over, trimming down, and selling companies, and one is not solely interested in cashing in and others be damned, cannot he in one minute, Newt-style, explain why he is a sort of personal trainer that both profits and does good from beating the out-of-shape into shape, and that when he cannot work with the flabby and unresponsive, he moves on?<\/p>\n The alternative is the sort of well-intentioned stumble in which the viewer sighs, \u201cCome on, Mitt, you can do it. Don\u2019t apologize or don\u2019t gloss over, but explain, your success!\u201d<\/p>\n Newt Gingrich<\/strong><\/p>\n Why his death\/resurrection\/death\/resurrection candidacy? His so-called checkered past and shoot-from-the-hip binges ensure that, on any given day, something arises from his past (women, book deals, consulting, etc.) or he says something provocative that leads nowhere (dressing down federal judges) which confirms the general take that he is too unstable for executive governance \u2014 a charge buttressed by the fact that Gingrich has never run a state or a business. But then, just when the op-ed writers and worried Republican elders write him off, he begins his comeback by questioning, rather than merely critiquing, the entire liberal experiment.<\/p>\n So he attacks\u00a0the nature of the journalist\u2019s question<\/a>\u00a0[2] rather than answers it; he rails at overspending but in an existential way that suggests it is a symptom of a deeper malady; he assesses his rivals in the abstract as well as the personal. That takes gumption and talent.<\/p>\n The effect on primary voters? Gingrich\u00a0becomes their everyman<\/a>\u00a0[3]. He speaks for the beaten-down conservative, sick of reading about DC insider politics, race-baiting, crime, media bias, or apologizing abroad, as if to say, \u201cI am your idea guy, your own PhD know-it-all, the good DC insider on your side who knows how the bad works, and I\u2019ll out-talk, out-argue, out-think, and out-emote the entire Ivy-League elite Obama technocracy.\u201d (Though I am not so sure he would win a debate with Obama given the exposure he offers through so many claims of multifaceted genius.)<\/p>\n So how long can the wild Gingrich needle graph go up and down, given his uncanny ability to die and be reborn a thousand times? I\u2019d say about a month longer when one of two things will occur. One scenario: He is so thoroughly vetted that no more disclosures can emerge and he stops expounding\u00a0ad hoc<\/em>\u00a0on Newtology in a way that confirms an undisciplined and wacky nature. In that case, he has a 50\/50 chance of winning the nomination, regardless of the current status of his funding, organization, and endorsements. Or, we will hear yet a new Newtism (e.g., something like another neo-Marxist take on Bain Capital), or yet another brilliantly unworkable plan that serves as a proverbial last straw on the camel\u2019s back, and the voters collectively sigh that\u00a0they prefer Romney<\/a>\u00a0[4] and pray he is not Dole, Bush Sr., or John McCain, more convinced that Gingrich is a Goldwater albatross rather than a Reagan savior.<\/p>\n Newt Gingrich has a real genius for appearing erudite, wizened, and clever in a flippant sort of way on television. Where Romney talks in banalities and split-the-difference circumspection, Newt rattles off facts and figures about the Civil War and World War II, to lend perceived gravitas to arguments otherwise identical to the rest of the candidates. I can imagine Romney conducting a meeting at Bain, asking for input about a takeover, only to have member Gingrich give an exegesis about the Sherman Antitrust Act, not an in-depth one, mind you, but a 10-second reference before moving on to serial 5-second exegeses about Adam Smith, John Adams, and Abraham Lincoln \u2014 with no effect on the issue at hand. The wide but shallow referencing is as impressive on television as it is often for no purpose.<\/p>\n I think Gingrich is a conservative, but he shares a liability common among conservatives of wishing to be considered an intellectual and in temperament moderate and accommodating \u2014 in short, an intellectual\u2019s loyal opponent and praised as such by the liberal establishment, the sort whom the New York Times or NPR might once or twice treat equitably. How else to explain his commercial with Nancy Pelosi, his cap-and-trade\/green affectations, or his support for the individual mandate? His ego knows no bounds. He may well through sheer repetition convince voters that as a Republican back-bencher he engineered the Reagan Revolution, ended the Cold War and then as speaker for four years forced a clueless Clinton to balance the budget on his terms and then by his own genius ensured the 1990s boom. I\u2019ve heard it so many times and so assuredly expressed, that by now I half believe it.<\/p>\n Mitt Romney<\/strong><\/p>\n By now we all know his strengths and weaknesses. He is\u00a0the most stable and judicious<\/a>\u00a0[5] of the candidates. He looks presidential; his family is Rockwellian. He is a Mormon who, after five seconds of seeing and listening to him, might as well be a Methodist. His manners and graciousness and personal probity reflect the best of the American patrician class: George H.W. Bush fair play, hard work, and\u00a0noblesse oblige.<\/p>\n <\/em>But Romney is up against a go-for-broke Gingrich, who at one time would probably not have been allowed into a Romney country club. That means he has to get gritty, but in a way that by now unfortunately is not his nature and will probably come off as preppy-surly.<\/p>\n <\/em>Gingrich told everyone that he was the proverbial tortoise who plods alone unnoticed before winning the race. In fact, he was the hare who rushed ahead with brilliant televised philosophizing only to wind up exhausted in scandal and self-inflicted buffoonery, only to sneak back. Romney is the plodder, raising money, building organization, at any given moment incapable of saying anything that would win him or lose him 10 points in the polls. He is the proverbial 4th-quarter, play-it-safe, run-out-the-clock coach who sits out a big lead, and who knows it will shrink, but might not shrink enough before the game ends \u2014 and finally who knows that he must, and may have the ability at some point to pass deep, but\u00a0still cannot quite take the risk<\/a>\u00a0[6].<\/p>\n <\/em>\u201cDo not take counsel of your fears\u201d lectured Gen. Patton. Mr. Romney, remember your\u00a0Danton<\/a>\u00a0[7]: \u201cIl nous faut de l\u2019audace, encore de l\u2019audace, toujours de l\u2019audace!<\/em>\u201d Otherwise, we have a replay of the doomed Hillary campaign.<\/p>\n <\/em>Rick Santorum<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em>I am not sure that he is the most conservative of the candidates as he attests. Paul made points that today\u2019s Pennsylvania senator naturally promotes union interests, protectionist interests, and constituent interests that are perfectly legitimate, but easily caricatured as not all that different from his liberal colleagues. His early petulance (that went something like \u201cwhy is this race so unfair that my sincere message is not getting out?\u201d) has mostly vanished with his rise in the polls. Santorum is surely the most decent of the candidates; he has no apologies that his ideas on social conduct, abortion, homosexuality, and the family are more early-20th than 21st century. That appeals to conservative voters, even if there has probably been an illegitimacy, an abortion, or a gay person in their extended family. In the end, he leaves you puzzled, perhaps hoping that his Santorum world of 1960 might somehow be restored, but bewildered at the very thought of how such a multi-theater war could ever be fought, much less won.<\/p>\n <\/em>Ron Paul<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em>For someone so savvy about the nature of the disaffected, why did Dr. Paul believe that in the South he could go on rants about US foreign policy that centered around American culpability? Of course, South Carolinians would be receptive to arguments that US expense abroad earned only ingratitude or was counter-productive; but when Paul suggests that we earned hostility on 9\/11 by our foreign policy, did he not expect to be widely repudiated? (e.g., So the country that saved Muslims in Kuwait, fed them in Somalia, helped them against the Russians, and bombed a European Christian country to keep them alive in Bosnia and Kosovo had a worse record on Islam than China and Russia, who were not attacked on 9\/11?)<\/p>\n <\/em>Paul has an eerie ability to win over almost anyone on matters of debt and financial insolvency, and lose them in a nano-second when he turns to foreign policy, where he loses clarity and conflates American gullibility with American culpability. A conservative might think it is unwise right now to attack Iran, but he does not wish to be told to look at the situation through the creepy Iranian regime\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n <\/em>One new development. I have followed Paul for years, but never noticed his crankiness. The more he is known to voters, the more he now appears crotchety, gratuitously negative, and surly \u2014 even if in small radio and print doses he once seemed merely eccentric, in a principled sort of way. Like Obama, the more we hear and see him, the less we find him personable. The suspicion never quite goes away, given his past writing and associates, that in private his views would be neo-Confederate, isolationist, and anti-Israel in ways that go beyond policy differences.<\/p>\n <\/em>Barack Obama<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em>While the Republican cannibals devour themselves, Obama took the last two months to slip through the most radical agendas of his presidency and all to media silence: slashing the defense budget, recess appointments in a non-recessed Congress, cancellation of the Keystone pipeline, borrowing up to a new $16 trillion ceiling, and playing the race card via Michelle (\u201cangry black woman\u201d), Holder (if you ask about Fast and Furious you are racist), and himself (the renewed \u201cthey won\u2019t give you a fair shot because of the way you look\u201d trope).<\/p>\n <\/em>That all got no attention, but firmed up his base among greens, minorities, and big government recipients. Coupled with his near silence (one press conference, few public speeches) and Republican self-immolation, his fire-up-the-base strategy has earned Obama a surge in the polls and lots of money at his $30,000 a head, corporate-jet-owner fundraisers.<\/p>\n <\/em>What a strange fellow: damning the 1% only to hire three-in-a-row multimillionaire \u201cfat-cat\u201d ex-Wall-streeters as his chiefs-of-staff, while he lives a life indistinguishable from those he caricatures. Obama brags of killing bin Laden, without the slightest concession that he employed protocols to do it that he once smeared, or that he got the troops home for Christmas, without a peep that he followed the Bush-Petraeus plan and not his own that once called for complete flight by March 2008. Poor conservatives: should they praise him for get-real flip-flops or damn him for his hypocrisy and the damage he once did as a critic of what kept us safe? He is a figure right out of Aristophanes, apolypragmon<\/em>\u00a0scoundrel, a demagogic genius, who can bomb Libya without congressional authority, claim it was not military action \u2014 and all the while keep the Michael Moore left silent if not proud of their guy\u2019s duplicity, while begging the right to dare argue that Libya is not better off without the nightmare of Gaddafi.<\/p>\n <\/em>Will he win? It depends on the huge and ever-growing Obama ego. After three years, to hear and see Obama now is to be exhausted by him, to tire of his hope and change banalities, to be worn out by his mean-spirited racial and class divisiveness, to shrug at his hypocrisy about slurring great wealth while seeking to enjoy its fruits, to snore at the serial me\/mine\/my. Yet not to see or hear him is, apparently for many, to be satisfied in the abstract that a young, charismatic president who looks good and talks glibly is our postracial president. The idea of Obama is as fresh as the reality is stale. But can his godhead see all that and accept that he wins by quietude and loses by being himself?<\/p>\n <\/em>He has no margin of error in the states that he most likely must win, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia, where the majority of voters are just the sorts whom he and Michelle privately despise, and now have ample evidence of the Obama antipathy.<\/p>\n <\/em>Prognosis<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em>There is a wish to cut and paste the flawed Republican candidates\u2019 strengths into a composite nominee: Romney\u2019s sobriety, Santorum\u2019s conviction, Paul\u2019s sense of outrage over debt, and Gingrich\u2019s glib lectures about civilization \u2014 while pruning away their unique defects: Santorum\u2019s self-righteousness, Paul\u2019s otherworldliness, Romney\u2019s Tom Dewey\/George H.W. Bush patrician woodenness, and Newt\u2019s tom-foolery.<\/p>\n <\/em>Santorum and Paul cannot beat Obama. Romney is still the most likely to make it a close race; Gingrich possibly to win by a wider margin \u2014 or, more likely, to lose by an even wider one.<\/p>\n <\/em>I have no endorsements, or at least not complete endorsements: I cannot vote under any circumstances for Obama and would not vote for Paul, but, for now, would find any of the remaining three candidates far better than what we have in the White House.<\/p>\n URLs in this post:\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/em>[1] the morality of ABC:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2012\/01\/21\/when-unaccountably-abcs-sop\/<\/a> \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.<\/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":[362],"tags":[12,115,448,74,449,1028,265,261,1044,32,446,447,450,451,1020,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-fH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1088,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/postmodern-populism\/","url_meta":{"origin":973,"position":0},"title":"Postmodern Populism","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":996,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fidelity-and-the-presidency\/","url_meta":{"origin":973,"position":1},"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":986,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-campaign-dictionary\/","url_meta":{"origin":973,"position":2},"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":1269,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-newt-gingrich-wrong-to-talk-about-sharia\/","url_meta":{"origin":973,"position":3},"title":"Is Newt Gingrich Wrong to Talk About Sharia?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media In a recent article appearing in\u00a0Tablet, Lee Smith takes former House speaker Newt Gingrich to task for the latter's\u00a0focus on sharia\u00a0(i.e., Islamic law). The thrust of Smith's argument is that sharia is a \"hopelessly abstract concept\" and \"a highly idealized version of reality that has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"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":973,"position":4},"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":11612,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-re-election-chances-may-be-better-than-you-think\/","url_meta":{"origin":973,"position":5},"title":"Trump\u2019s Re-Election Chances May Be Better Than You Think","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 17, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness What are Donald Trump\u2019s chances for re-election in 2020? If history is any guide, pretty good. In early 1994, Bill Clinton\u2019s approval rating after two years in office hovered around a dismal 40 percent. The first midterm elections of the Clinton presidency were an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Donald Trump\"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/tag\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973"}],"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=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n[2] the nature of the journalist\u2019s question:http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2012\/01\/19\/gingrich-wins-the-gop-debate-in-the-first-five-minutes\/<\/a>
\n[3] becomes their everyman:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/blog\/how-newt-roared-back\/<\/a>
\n[4] they prefer Romney:\u00a0http:\/\/hotair.com\/archives\/2012\/01\/22\/mitt-romney-evitable\/<\/a>
\n[5] the most stable and judicious:http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/11\/us\/politics\/two-mitt-romneys-wealthy-man-thrifty-habits.html?_r=1&partner=MYWAY&ei=5065<\/a>
\n[6] still cannot quite take the risk:http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/205535-doubts-creep-in-as-awkward-romney-tries-not-to-lose<\/a>
\n[7] Danton:\u00a0http:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Georges_Danton<\/a><\/p>\n