We currently have a president who is unable to work with Congress. Why are we even considering a guy who won’t be able to work with some in his own party?
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) was on Fox News Sunday this morning and said that having experienced firsthand Newt’s leadership skills, he is unable to support him in the GOP primary.
“I am not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich’s having served under him for four years and experienced his leadership. Because I found it lacking often times,” Coburn said on Fox News Sunday. The Oklahoma senator served in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.
“There’s all kind of leaders, leaders that instill confidence and leaders that are somewhat abrupt, leaders that have one standard for the people that they are leading and a different standard for themselves,” he said. “I will have difficulty supporting him for president of the United States.”
Coburn in March said that he was looking for a president that would unite the country and raised questions about Gingrich’s confrontational style.
Senator Coburn was a little bet less blunt than Rep. Peter King (R-NY) in his assessment of the former Speaker.
“It was like Newt would read a book and we’d go off into a different topic,” King said. “He’d go on ‘Meet the Press’ and he’d go off message. If you’re the speaker and you lay out an agenda, or a particular bill, you stay on that until the bill is passed. With Newt, it was hard to get that type of discipline. He’d say something else or come up with a different argument.
“He also has this incredible sense of exaggeration. Like, I don’t know how many times he’ll say, ‘This is the most corrupt act in the history of Western Civilization,’ or ‘the most despicable.’ You can only say that so many times. So to me, I just didn’t see him having the sense of discipline or the sense of direction that’s really needed.”
King said he wasn’t the best person to assess how Gingrich treated his members, since the two sparred often, but he offered his own experience.
“I thought he was condescending,” King said. “I used to see him on the floor, even with his staff, it was like a presidential entourage having to follow him. And ‘I want this done, and I want this done.’ That type of thing.
Ouch! Speaking of “ouch” read George Will’s latest column. You can count him in the anyone-but-Newt camp.
Mr. Will makes some good points about Gingrich. I have never met him, but know a former federal agent who did meet Gingrich when he was speaker of the House. The agent’s impressions were similar to Will’s article. The two impressions I recall are that the former speaker was condescending and filled with hubris.
Of course this was years ago, but the Will article does paint a similar picture. Gingrich is a Washington insider, capable of marshalling a great deal people to acquire the needed votes for programs that the favors. In the current series of debates, his ideas are good, but often couched in terms that the average listener does not understand. For example, he is an advocate for abolishing the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. While this is admirable on his part, most people do not recognize this as a cumbersome law that greatly inhibits stock owned businesses. It was congress’ anti-ENRON law.
Additionally, he has humiliated his liberal inquisitors during the debates for their lack of knowledge. He can quickly turn the tables against his antagonist; the hunted quickly become the hunter when he catches them unprepared. I do appreciate Gingrich in this aspect in the GOP debates. As an insider, he also strays from the party’s message, thus angering the Tea Party segment of the party.
I’m still processing the GOP presidential candidates. My favorite candidate did not enter the fray, but the primaries will narrow the field. The choice will already be obvious before my state conducts the presidential primary, so the choice will become infinitely easier.
Meanwhile the media frenzy will continue to discredit the GOP frontrunner, and deify the current occupant.
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I have been watching Gingrich since the last election. He decided not to run the last time around because he felt he was not ready, or perhaps because the time was not right. I would suggest that demonstrated a high degree of maturity and political savvy.
I too was hoping for someone else to run, (yes, I mean Sarah) but of all of the candidates we have in this primary there are only two who I do not wish to see win the nomination. But even that is not important, what is important to me is that conservatives need to learn to unite. Americas Socialists are very much united and destroying our foundation, how can we possibly expect to even compete with them if we cannot come together as well?
I do not find Coburn or King’s disparaging remarks helpfull, quite the contrary. What if Newt does in fact become the nominee? How many votes will the conservative cause loose to such statements? And what of the Senator and Congressman? Will they continue to disparage the conservative nominee? If so in favor of what? We only have so many options..
America is in big trouble, socialism is shredding up and burning our beloved Constitution. It seems petty to me to place such personal differences above our desperate need to remain united as we were in 2010 against the juggernaut of destruction that is American Socialism.
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The only question that needs to be answered is: Can Newt beat Obama? I think so.
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If Newt is to win, he has to not only beat Obama, he must sustain the onslaught of the main stream media and the hidden backers of his electronic lynching!
He is a strong debater and has proven that he is not just another person with a dream!
Time will tell who will oppose Obama in the November 2012 general election.
Maybe Jimmy Carter can watch a few election booth to see if ACORN is still lurking!
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