Newt?

Saturday again after a busy week. It was to have been a morning at the Chino Hills High School Amateur Radio Swap Meet and today I was to have taken The War Planner III and my grandchildren, Sabrina and The War Planner IV. but, alas, a Pacific storm swept in and I don't feel like trudging around the swap and exposing the two kids to the cold and damp. If they got sick, my bride and my daughter in law would never let me hear the end of it.

Live to fight another day, as they say,

So I have time to jot a few words here before I embark on today's rain-sodden adventures.

I see where the big rage is Newt Gingrich's second comeback-- or is it third (I have lost count) -- as he is poised to trounce Mitt Romney in South Carolina. I don't know about you but I am actually wearying of all of these debates and the endless hype and breathless speculation by the news outlets over our political process.

The old adage is that there are two things best left unseen: the making of sausage and the making of laws (politics). It is as though, in this latter case, the politicians in our ruling class have taken their show ion the road. Their multi-state, mobile abbatoir on the road with the killing axes, flensing knives, offal, entrails, and blood spatters on full view for the great gawking proletariat. If I weren't such a person of sunny optimism, I would say that the MSM and the clods who control our destiny are bent on discouraging us from participation this Fall by dulling our interest now.

It would seem that -- for the moment -- this is working on me. I prefer to chase other things at the moment and let the drama play out or, in keeping with my earlier metaphor, the meat get packed.

Even my beloved Hot Air has descended into this maelstrom with its commenters dividing into several camps: the staunch ABR (Anyone But Romney) crowd, the Mittbots, the terminal Eeyores ("We should give up now, it's all hopeless, Obama will win!"), their brethren, the eternally cynical basement-dwelling cynics who basically take a great deal of delight in rebutting/refuting/pissing on every shred of happiness and hope posted, and the sarcastic, snarky (God, I hate that word) comedians.

While Ed Morrissey's analysis is usually spot on and his ability to dissect the bogus MSM polls to point out the howlers and blatant attempts to manipulate with their questionable statistical methods (oversampling Dems, etc.), the others -- Allahpundit, Jazz Shaw, etc. -- have devolved into spewers of disdain and cynicism. The fresh-faced, lovely Tina Korbe attempts some perkiness but, alas, she is too much of a dewy-eyed ingenue to do serious, hard-bitten commentary. She needs about 500 miles of hard road and a few cases of cheap Scotch to earn her grits, in my opinion.

But, as I said, the once-delightful comments have become a roiling mass of incoherence with very few intellectual bright spots.

That said, I stumbled on this remark that sums up my feelings on this rainy Saturday morning in Southern California. It's on the subject of Gingrich's sudden resurrection and rise in the South Carolina polls:

Well put. I strongly support Romney, and I don’t feel nervous or bad about the fact that Newt might win in South Carolina. This whole business about Newt getting attention for his punchy debate answers is just silly. It’s Newt Gingrich we’re talking about. The man is disliked so much by so many (including conservatives and independents) that it’s completely laughable that anyone would think he could win the nomination (let alone beat Obama, which would never happen).

We all know that this angry, pompous Newt routine is going to wear thin fast. This is not something that is going to sell well in many other states. Newt Gingrich will push his blunt answers too far, he’ll let it all go to his head (as he always does), and people will get a closer look at Newt and sour on him again.

Kind of a shame that things are having to get so ugly (and that an extended primary season might end up helping Obama), but I have no doubt that most voters are sane and will vote to nominate Romney, who is the candidate with the best chance, BY FAR, of beating Obama.

bluegill on January 21, 2012 at 5:58 AM

..sorry about the breach of etiquette in quoting the entirety of this long response. It's just that there's so many things I agree with -- especially the part about Newt winning SC.

One really, really good takeaway from all of this drama is that the common folk (read you, me, the HA crowd, and the real people of this country) have had the scales fall away from their eyes and have seen that a candidate can give some blow back to the anointed liberal moderators of these chicken-sh!t debates. Conversely, it might show those who stage the presidential debates in the Fall that their gotcha questions and hit-job journalism bomb-drops will incite us, the great unwashed, to favor the victim of their set-up.

Hell, they might take this lesson so to heart that they'll probably savage their beloved Pantload in an attempt to revive him in the public's eye.

It's all good, the HA Eeyore crowd notwithstanding.

..Maybe I can hit the swap if there's a break in the clouds.

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