Conservatives Are Being Forced Into a Pragmatic Pick with 2012 GOP Field
A longtime conservative friend sent me an email after reading something positive I had written about Newt Gingrich: "Whoever votes (for) or supports Newt for president is out of their mind."
It wouldn't be the first time I've been called crazy.
He continued: "You can believe in redemption, as I do, but you are not thinking seriously if you support a person for president with the baggage he is carrying. What an example for our children and future generations when we dismiss character as the foundation for leadership."
There's more, but I get his point.
The evangelical Christian population of South Carolina apparently believes that while character is a good thing, the ability to defeat President Obama and dismantle the welfare state is more important.
Here, in part, is how I responded to my friend: What is the standard for selecting a president and who decides? Franklin Roosevelt cheated on Eleanor with Lucy Mercer and perhaps others, yet he helped to win World War II and led us out of the Great Depression. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson used a questionable encounter between U.S. and North Vietnamese vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin to ram a resolution through Congress that sucked us deeper into the Vietnam War, which needlessly killed more than 58,000 Americans. Johnson had one wife, but allegedly had a roving eye.
Richard Nixon by all indications was faithful to Pat, but unfaithful to the Constitution. Gerald Ford and Betty (who was divorced) were pro-choice on abortion, which is anathema to social conservatives. Jimmy Carter was a faithful, church-going, Sunday school-teaching, born-again man. He was a profile of what social conservatives say they want in a president, yet they now judge him a failure. Ronald Reagan was divorced, but a good president.
Bill Clinton kept the tabloids, talk radio and mainstream media busy with his marital transgressions. His apologists said sex was a private matter between him and his family and had no bearing on his ability to do his job. George W. Bush spoke of being "redeemed," as Gingrich does, but from alcohol, not women. The judgment of history is yet to be rendered on his eight years in office.
And now we have Barack Obama, who is the husband of one wife and seems to love her and their two daughters. But conservatives don't like his policies.
A New York Times editorial last week castigated Gingrich, not for his three marriages and acknowledged adultery, but for his "sermonizing." The newspaper thinks that because of his past sins Gingrich has no right "to tell Americans how to run their lives."
To say that Gingrich has not always lived up to the ideals he professes does not diminish those ideals. When Thomas Jefferson wrote and delegates of the Continental Congress edited the Declaration of Independence, some of those assembled owned slaves. Did writing "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" ring less true because of slavery? No, it simply set an ideal in place that nearly 90 years later Abraham Lincoln (and 100 years after that, Martin Luther King Jr.) would reference in successful efforts to force government to recognize the rights of African-Americans.
As America grows more secular, less religious and less married, appeals to "morality" will increasingly fall on deaf ears. Charles Murray wrote about this "new American divide" in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal.
Voters on one side of the divide -- the "traditionalists" -- are conflicted. They remind me of the film "It's Complicated" in which Meryl Streep has an affair with her remarried ex-husband (Alec Baldwin), while entertaining the amorous intentions of her architect (Steve Martin).
Social conservatives seem similarly conflicted in the Romney vs. Gingrich vs. Santorum contest. Two of the candidates have had just one wife and they are religious. And then there's Newt.
Conservative voters are being forced to make a pragmatic choice between their "traditional values" and who can best defeat President Obama. If Gingrich's convincing victory in the South Carolina primary is any indication, they appear to be making that choice.
- Cal Thomas's blog
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Comments
A Choice Based On Smear Is Being Incapable
Submitted by Winghunter on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 7:21am.
More emerges about Marianne Gingrich
6 year 'affair' took place while separated
http://bit.ly/w3OeL8
Setting the record straight by Jackie Gingrich Cushman
http://bit.ly/tZre1b
Thomas Sowell:
South Carolina Message http://bit.ly/xsuRYf
The Past And The Present http://bit.ly/u7IUJP
Republicans Voter’s Choices http://bit.ly/sYlZLY
The Case for Newt Gingrich http://bit.ly/w2Wvsz
because
Submitted by MidAmerica on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 7:26am.
When you are seriously ill you do not inquire if the doctor is a good husband and father but just if he is a good doctor.
I tried to tell that to my
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 8:21am.
I tried to tell that to my liberal friend. But she voted for Obama because he seemed so nice and he had "such a nice family."
She couldn't "stand" Bush for no discernible reason.
She now talks of Gingrich "divorcing his wife while she was dying of cancer"
You just can't reason with some people. And they vote.
There may be reasons in his past not to vote for Gingrich, but they are not personal ones.
LOL, perhaps she thinks the
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 9:12am.
LOL, perhaps she thinks the same of you?
All choices in life are
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 9:20am.
All choices in life are compromised by one factor or another. I ma not thrilled by Santorum, to me it seems he does not have any powers of persuasion and will not win. Romney is a liberal as Mass would not elect anything but a liberal for their governor and enacted many liberal policies; in short I dont trust him. Paul is looney.
Gingrich is then the last one standing. He will slice and dice not only Obama but the LSM with his keen skills. He did well as speaker and will do well as President.
I fear Obama has tricks up his sleeve such as the unsealing of records as he did in his Illinois congress run. I see the possibility of unsealing of Gingrich's sealed records.
All I really want on the ballot is
Submitted by Willis_Leon_Johnson on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 12:25pm.
NONE OF THE ABOVE.
The last governors race in Colorado, the anointed was not chosen BY THE PEOPLE in the primary.
The State 'republican' elitists dumped the PEOPLES CHOICE and backed a third party. They also lost the election to a liberal.
Better to lose to a liberal than lose control of the process to the people.
Romney is the chosen one.
IF the People reject him and select another... lesser.... candidate, with the national party elitists dump the candidate chosen by the People and back a 3rd party candidate?
End 'gun violence in America' - Require training and MANDATORY "Shall Carry" by every Citizen.
If harry reid is the best person to lead the senate, what does that say about the other 99 senators?
It isn't so much a "pro Newt"
Submitted by Free Stinker on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 12:41pm.
It isn't so much a "pro Newt" thing as it is an "anti establishment" thing. We gave the GOP control of the House and Boehner and other GOP leaders gave us the cold shoulder. High time we returned the favor by dissing their candidate Mitt.
/// Sarah Palin Fan since July 11, 2007 /// خال
You mean like this?
Submitted by Willis_Leon_Johnson on Tue, 01/24/2012 - 3:51pm.
Why the TEA Party?
Because Conservatives realized that gov spending was out of control and they also realized to a greater or lesser extent it was both parties that had been spending our money like drunken sailors. The people that attended the first TEA Party knew what they wanted and what they had to have to make a change. They wanted a voice and they also knew that their last best chance of getting a voice rested in the Republican Party. That’s what they charged the TEA Party leadership with; establishing that voice by any means necessary. We faced hostile takeovers (co-opting) from the GOP. They tried to divert and distract us from our voice goal with other issues, comprehensive immigration reform, pro life, foreign policy, Obamacare, Cap and Trade etc and we voluntarily cooperated with them on all of these issues and they still refused to give us a voice or a Conservative candidate.
All we ever received from the GOP was their choice of candidate and the lesser of two evils choice along with the ultimatum and imperative that we have to beat the Dems. That was their goal. Our goal remains establishing a voice for Conservatives within ‘their’ party. We stood fast on Maes and McConnell. They know now that we weren’t bluffing, but still no voice.
But with Gingrich’s win in South Carolina the game has changed. I know and you know that Gingrich probably isn’t our first choice of a Conservative candidate but he’s definitely not the GOP’s choice of a Rep candidate either. What hangs in the balance is a split vote and four more years of Obama and that will mean higher taxes on the rich for them. For us four more years represents a nanny state agenda thorough social justice engineering by decree.
The only way for either of us to avoid that fate is to unite behind the lesser of two evils choice for both of us but still no voice, still no choice. But this time at least we’re not the only ones in that boat. What we have gained with the present predicament is at least a chance to get a TEA Party foot in the Republican door. They know that they need our vote to beat Obama and they know that this time we do have a choice other than their anointed candidate Mitt Romney.
Will they risk four more years just to keep that TEA Party foot out of their door? Well now, that’s the question. And if we want to come out of this with a voice and a choice, this time we have to insist that they bite the bullet for the sake of unity. We already know what the bullet tastes like and we’re going to get another bite of it because Gingrich wasn’t our first choice either but that’s the game of politics and it’s a game you can’t win unless you have a seat at the table (a voice).
Whether we achieve the TEA Party goal of establishing a Conservative voice in the Repub party is directly dependent upon whether or not we stand our ground in this election and it can’t be a bluff. The GOP has as much to lose as do Conservatives, probably more and they also have more to gain by uniting the vote behind a candidate with an R behind his name.
This is the moment that we’ve all worked so hard for. This is why we suffered all the slings and arrows. I know your hearts and I know all of the issues that you care about. I fought for them too with every fiber of my being. I was there with you every day on every street corner but now I will ask you to set all those issues aside for the moment in the reality that if we achieve a voice we will have a better chance of winning those issues too.
It’s time for us to grow one eyebrow and stay the course once again. Let us unite behind Gingrich, as unpalatable as that might be. If we once again have to make the lesser of two evils choice, let’s do it with a voice and let’s make it our choice for a change. That’s what establishing a voice is all about. In our recent survey (email blast), our database and membership in their responses overwhelmingly chose Gingrich as their choice. Perhaps they somehow knew that it would come down to this moment. And we work for them, they don’t work for us.
American Patriot
End 'gun violence in America' - Require training and MANDATORY "Shall Carry" by every Citizen.
If harry reid is the best person to lead the senate, what does that say about the other 99 senators?