Newt’s Turn: Can He Stop Mitt?

15 November 2011 |permalink | email article

Would be Republican presidential nominees fall back from challenging Mitt Romney—Rick Perry and Herman Cain come to mind—but former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is making his move in the backstretch. Jeff Greenfield, a past analyst for three networks and a speechwriter for Robert F. Kennedy during his presidential campaign, noted one answer especially from last Saturday’s South Carolina debate.

Asked how he would think outside the box on foreign policy, Gingrich answered: I would explicitly adopt the Reagan/John Paul 11/Thatcher strategy toward Iran…“I would explicitly repudiate what Obama’s done on Agenda 21 as the kind of inference from the United Nations that’s wrong. Greenfield believes Newt has climbed back from irrelevancy to contender because he’s playing Assassin’s Creed Revelations while his opponents are playing Pong. His debate skills have helped but he’s following the same path that John McCain did four years ago after his campaign was declared dead: retreat to higher ground; take the long view; hope that a string of prospective rivals fall by the wayside.”

Sacramento Politic

Gov. Jerry Brown, the Sacramento Bee reported, has big plans for the 2012 election ballot: stuff like tax increases, pension changes and a funding guarantee for local law endorsement. While previous governors in California typically collect millions in their first 12 months in office, the Democratic governor had raised about $45,000 through June. Not since 1983, when Republican Gov. George Deukmejian collected $37,000, has a first-year governor raised so little money. “He’s been focused on the work of governing. Political matters like funding have taken a back set,” said Steve Glazer, Brown’s longtime political adviser. On the November 2012 ballot he’ll seek to put constitutional amendments on the ballot to reduce pension benefits and guarantee ongoing funding for counties assuming part of the state’s prison workload. And propose tax increases?

L.A. Politic

“The number one problem facing L.A. is preparing our workers for the 21st century.”—Edgy Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, interviewed by CNN at LAX while looking for his next political gig. His most recent brainstorm: using borrowed public funds to spend almost three decades’ worth of street repair dollars during the next few years. Dead on arrival!

Quotable

“Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding.  Waterboarding is torture.”—John McCain on Twitter, supported only by Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman.

“Any Republican would, if elected president, set out to undermine precisely those government programs that work best. But Mr. Perry might not remember which programs he was supposed to destroy.”—NYT columnist Paul Krugman, also shooting down Mitt Romney’s “vouchers for veterans,” another really bad idea. 

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