Newt Gingrich To Run For President. Why Bother?

No one can say that the announcement was unexpected. The former Speaker of the House of Representatives (perhaps the nation's first lard ass to hold that position), Congress' lower house, has been signaling his intention to run for president since 2010 and earlier this year established a so-called "exploratory committee" to test the waters. Gingrich finally made his official declaration through Twitter and a campaign video on his newly inaugurated 2012 presidential website.

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His first appearance was, naturally, the Fox News channel and Sean Hannity's propaganda shop, no less. Even the few journalists at Fox News were too much for Gingrich to bother with. And he has good cause because under even the most timid of critical scrutiny, Newt Gingrich is a deeply unattractive candidate with very limited appeal. For Gingrich, his idea of a presidential campaign is simple, he intends to propose a contrasting vision and expect Americans to rally around his talking points on freedom, prosperity and patriotism. 'O wait, but that is what ever politician proposes. But Gingrich thinks he's actually being original. Voters vote on policy mattes, but more so on character and temperate. And in the latter category, Newt is far from palpable to the average voters.

Character? This self-righteous promoter of "Christian values" crap served his first wife with divorce papers when she was hospital-stricken with cancer and left his second wife for his Congressional mistress, who is now his third wife, while he was railing against Bill Clinton's infidelity. And, recently, Gingrich (who had asked his second wife to accept his affair) incredulously stated that he only cheated because he loved America so much and was so dedicated to his task sering our great country that he...apparently forgot who is wife is and just started fucking the intern. Or something like that.

Temperate? Gingrich is known for being an irascible and erratic person who routinely scolds his staff for perceived slights. Beyond the bad temper, Gingrich is also a petty, partisan fanatic with a heavy proclivity for absurd exaggerations and histrionic rhetoric. He portrays his political opponents in demonic tones through a chiaroscuro eye of Republican purity versus Democrats who have not just the misfortune of being wrong on policy, but truly committed to the destruction of America. The Democrats, whether Clinton or Obama, are irredeemable draft dodgers or Kenyan, anti-colonial socialists. Gingrich's rhetoric against Obama has fine toned his polemics more suited for redneck talk radio than a statesman. He has accused Obama of being everything from a man with - gasp! - Third-world sympathies to being at the helm of a "secular, socialist machine" dedicated to ruining the country and remaking it in the image of Trotsky or whatever. And has stated that Obama's administration is informed by an anti-Christian, anti-Jewish world view and that (and here is Gingrich's famed grandeur of delusion hero complex versus the abject evil he attributes to his opponents at play) if he and his allies do not win America will become a radical secular atheist nation and, interestingly enough, dominated by radical Islamists. When Gingrich gets crazy, logic is the first casualty. His deranged, bitter rhetoric plays well with the inbred hicks and rascals and Jesus fanatics who make up a large share of the GOP base, it is red meat for them, but such Rush Limbaugh-esque partisanship is off-putting for independents and even many Republicans.

So the character and temperate cards are easily out played by the loyal husband, loving father and cool, confident No Drama Obama. But what about policy? Irrelevant. Voters may place the highest premium on policy for their local Congressman and be willing to forgive excesses, but the president is another manner. Voters look for something more important here. If voters do not trust your manner, if they do not see you as "presidential", then you have no shot. You must first earn their trust as a leader before you convince them on your course. Gingrich does not have that. He cannot endear trust and so his race is well and all over as soon as it began.