GOP Nominee 2012 - Who Will It Be?, Pt. 2

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Gingrich is a Dominionist, Romney likes to torture dogs, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum are retardidly insane and Paul is nuts. I can't wait to see who the nominee is..
 
at this point in time

I will say momentum is quietly shifting (back) to Romney
and more likely he will get the nom before the late primaries



at this point in time, slight adjustment from last post


I will say momentum is quietly shifting (back) to Romney
and more likely he will get the nom before the late primaries
 
Newt Gingrich told a gay man and longtime resident of Oskaloosa here today that he should vote for President Obama. “I asked him if he’s elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama,” said Scott Arnold, an adjunct professor of writing at William Penn University.”


Gingrich, who has a half sister who is a lesbian, has previously said in Iowa that same-sex marriage “is a temporary aberration that will dissipate.” In his letter to The Family Leader this month, he advocated a federal constitutional amendment that would deny marriage rights to same-sex couples.


Newt Gingrich to gay Iowan: Vote for Obama | Iowa Caucuses


Shame on him.
 
at least he was honest, though. and right.

no gay person should vote for the GOP, insofar as he/she is concerned with his/her legal equality. despite Obama's and continued timidity on marriage, he's the most pro-equality president ever, and has significant LGBT accomplishments under his belt.

it's perfectly possible that gay people can be as concerned with never having taxes raised on the wealthy or starting wars for oil as anyone else, and this might trump their belief in the necessity of their own legal equality. \
 
He was honest, and despite that being a bit disturbing in itself....what does that say about a candidate who is openly saying he will not engage a portion of the people he is supposed to lead?
 
He was honest, and despite that being a bit disturbing in itself....what does that say about a candidate who is openly saying he will not engage a portion of the people he is supposed to lead?



i think it's more what it says about the base of the party.

i can pretty much guarantee that 99% of professional politicians who live and work in the DC area, Republican and Democrat, actually could care less about most of the social concerns of their base. there are certainly some exceptions -- Santorum and Bachman spring to mind -- but the rest of the candidates (as well as Senators and most Congress members) might not actively care about same-sex marriage, but if you asked them if they feel that gay people represent some sort of threat or should be actively discriminated against or if it's a choice, they would say no. they all have gay people on their staff. they all have gay friends. they are all generally cosmopolitan people who like nice things, who like money, who like to travel, and who like seeing their name up in lights. they tow the social conservative line for votes. the base wants its red meat, so they toss it to them.

(they're all also personally pro-choice as well :shh: )
 
Romney is now once again the favorite going into Iowa according to the 538 Blog. The only way he's stopped at this point is if the extreme conservatives/evangelicals turn out to the polls in heavy numbers. They always exceed their polling, hence people like Gingrich can only be helped in the Iowa caucus, so the question is whether or not it will be enough to make up Romney's huge lead over everyone else at the moment not named Ron Paul.

In Iowa, Conservative Republicans Have Overachieved Polls

I think Iowa as a whole skews more conservative when it comes to the Caucuses, mostly because it involves so much more work than voting that only the older voters with nothing to do are more likely to show up. Hence victories for Huckabee and Kerry instead of Romney and Dean.
 
Romney's always been the fav.

The funny thing has been watching the longtime GOP voters and leadership circle around trying every possibility except for Mittens.

I kind of feel bad for the guy at this point. I haven't seen a politician this half-heartedly thrown to the top of a leadership race in a while....
 
Newt and Rick Perry fail to make ballot in Virginia. Wow, such incompetence on the part of those campaigns.

The Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday that GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich failed to amass the 10,000 signatures needed in order to secure a place on the ballot in the party's March 6th primary election. Gingrich isn't the first Republican presidential candidate who failed to qualify for the "Super Tuesday" primary contest - on Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry also failed to make the cut for the same reason. Rival candidates Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) qualified for the primary. On the Democratic side, President Barack Obama qualified earlier this year.

The failure is a particularly tough blow to Gingrich, who is a Virginia resident, having lived in the Washington suburb of McLean, Va. for more than a decade. Gingrich said earlier this week that he had reached the 10,000 signatures needed to appear on the ballot, but after a review of his 11,050 signatures, the Republican Party of Virginia announced in a tweet early Saturday that Gingrich "did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary."

A spokesman for Gingrich had yet to respond to an email early Saturday morning from The Huffington Post, but a Perry spokesman told NBC that their campaign would "closely review the facts and law to determine whether an appeal or challenge is warranted."

Newt Gingrich Fails To Qualify For Virginia GOP Primary Despite Residency [UPDATED]
 
Huffington Post

NEW YORK CITY -- For the second time in as many runs for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, controversial newsletters Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) published in the 1980s and 90s are threatening his candidacy.

The newsletters have plagued him since he ran to reclaim his seat in Congress in 1996. As he vies for an upset win in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, they continue to shadow him today. What's changed, from then to now, is Paul's explanation.

Pressed recently about the contents of the Ron Paul Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, the Ron Paul Survival Report and the Ron Paul Investment Letter, Paul has simply denied direct involvement.

"I didn’t write them," he told CNN, when asked about the newsletter's racist descriptions of urban society and paranoid conspiracy theories about federal government. "I disavow them. That's it."

But since Paul spoke to CNN, a number of old videos have surfaced showing him touting the newsletters that were being put out under his name. Paul's defenders have noted that even in those video clips, he does not claim authorship, which is true. Back when the issue first arose, however, he was willing to acknowledge that the words were his -- the only complaints he made were about context.

The Huffington Post went through archived newspaper clips from Paul's '96 congressional campaign against Lefty Morris and unearthed several new instances of Paul or his campaign pleading for a more sympathetic understanding of what he wrote.

The Dallas Morning News -- May 22, 1996.

Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation.

Dr. Paul also took exception to the comments of Mr. Bledsoe, saying that the voters in the 14th District and the people who know him best would be the final judges of his character.

"If someone challenges your character and takes the interpretation of the NAACP as proof of a man's character, what kind of a world do you live in?" Dr. Paul asked.

In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.

"If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them," Dr. Paul said.

Austin American-Statesman -- May 23, 1996

"Dr. Paul is being quoted out of context," [Paul's spokesman, Michael] Sullivan said. "It's like picking up 'War and Peace' and reading the fourth paragraph on page 481 and thinking you can understand what's going on."

"You have to understand what he is writing. Democrats in Texas are trying to stir things up by using half quotes to impugn his character," Sullivan said. "His writings are intellectual. He assumes people will do their own research, get their own statistics, think for themselves and make informed judgments."

Austin American-Statesman -- July 25, 1996

Morris distributed Paul's article to reporters at a Capitol news conference. It was not the first time. Morris has been scrutinizing Paul's writings and sharing his findings with reporters. In May, he released an article in which Paul described a majority of black men in Washington, D.C., as ''semi-criminal or entirely criminal.''

Morris, a Bee Cave lawyer, once again called on Paul to release back copies of the newsletter he has published for more than a decade. Paul, a Surfside obstetrician, has refused.

He said he has written ''thousands of items'' during the past 20 years and that releasing these materials would be impractical. Paul said releasing all those writings would be like asking Morris to ''provide documents for every lawsuit he has been involved in during his lengthy legal career.''

A request for comment from the Paul campaign was not immediately returned.
 
CARROLLTON, Georgia (CNN) -- Newt Gingrich claims that it was his first wife, not Gingrich himself, who wanted their divorce in 1980, but court documents obtained by CNN appear to show otherwise.

The Republican presidential candidate, now in his third marriage, has been peppered with attacks and questions about his divorce from Jackie Gingrich for the past three decades.

Questions about his past -- and what that past tells voters about his personal behavior -- have re-emerged as he has returned to the political scene 13 years after he resigned as speaker of the House.

A new defense that has arisen as Gingrich entered the presidential race this year is the insistence that she, not he, wanted the divorce.

On the "Answering the attacks" page of his campaign website, Newt.org, which "(Sets) the Record Straight: Newt's Positions on the Issues and His Record," the campaign discusses Gingrich's first divorce.

"It was (Jackie Gingrich) that requested the divorce, not Newt," the campaign website said, referring readers to an online column written by Gingrich's youngest daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, last May.

Cushman, 13 when her parents separated in 1980, was rebutting persistent rumors that her father served divorce papers on her mother the day after cancer surgery. In the column, Cushman writes that papers were never served in the hospital, and that her mother did not actually have cancer.

"My mother and father were already in the process of getting a divorce, which she requested," Cushman wrote.

After initially being told that the divorce documents were sealed, CNN on Thursday obtained the folder containing the filings in the divorce, which had been stashed away for years in a Carroll County, Georgia, court clerk's drawer. Retired clerk Kenneth Skinner told CNN his deputy took Gingrich's file out of the public records room around 1994, "when he (Gingrich) became the center of attention," because Skinner feared tampering and theft.

"During these years, you had to make sure those papers were there," Skinner said. "People could go in those files and get things out. We didn't have enough security to control it."

Current Carroll County Clerk of Court Alan Lee said he called the retired deputy clerk, who told him where to find the papers, after CNN began looking for them last week.

The documents, and interviews with people close to the couple at the time, contradict the Gingrich claim about who wanted the divorce.

Newt Gingrich filed a divorce complaint on July 14, 1980, in Carroll County, saying that "the marriage of the parties is irretriebably (sic) broken."

Jackie Battley Gingrich, the congressman's wife and the mother of Jackie Gingrich Cushman, responded by asking the judge to reject her husband's filing.

"Defendant shows that she has adequate and ample grounds for divorce, but that she does not desire one at this time," her petition said.

"Although defendant does not admit that this marriage is irretrievably broken, defendant has been hopeful that an arrangement for temporary support of defendant and the two minor daughters of the parties could be mutually agreed upon without the intervention of this court," her petition said. "All efforts to date have been unsuccessful."

When CNN presented the information found in the divorce file to the Gingrich campaign, its spokesman stood by the contention that it was Gingrich's ex-wife who asked for the divorce in 1980.

"Carroll County Georgia court documents accurately show Newt Gingrich filed for a divorce from his wife Jackie Battley, but it was Jackie Battley who requested the divorce," spokesman R.C. Hammond said in an e-mail to CNN Saturday. "Gingrich, her husband, obtained legal counsel and filed the divorce papers initiating the legal proceedings."

"It was the same legal proceedings that determined and set the amounts of payments Gingrich would provide to support his two daughters," Hammond said.

Jackie Gingrich, who has rarely spoken to the media about the divorce, declined CNN's request for an interview. A friend said that Jackie Gingrich did not want to comment out of concern for her daughters and grandchildren.

In a brief interview in 1985, she told the Washington Post: "He can say that we had been talking about it for 10 years, but the truth is that it came as a complete surprise."

Leonard H. "Kip" Carter, a former close Gingrich friend, backed the contention that it was Newt Gingrich who wanted the divorce.

"He (Gingrich) said, 'You know and I know that she's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a president,' " Carter, who now lives in South Carolina, told CNN recently, relating the conversation he had with Gingrich the day Gingrich revealed he was filing for divorce. Carter served as treasurer of Gingrich's first congressional campaigns.

Carter, who was a fellow history professor when Gingrich taught at West Georgia College in Carrollton, said he broke off his friendship with Newt Gingrich because of the congressman's treatment of his wife during the divorce.

Asked in an e-mail whether that conversation in 1980 occurred the way that Carter recounted, Gingrich spokesman Hammond did not respond.

Gerald Johnson, a Georgia state legislator at the time who also was in Gingrich's Sunday school class, said it was his memory that Jackie Gingrich did not want a divorce. Johnson laughed when told the presidential campaign is now saying she requested the divorce, calling that "surprising."

When Gingrich filed for divorce, he was already seeing a 28-year-old congressional aide, whom he married six months after his divorce was final in 1981. The second wife, Marianne Ginther Gingrich, told Esquire magazine last year that Gingrich even introduced her to his parents in the summer of 1980, the same time he filed for divorce.

"They were thrilled because they hadn't wanted Newt to marry (Jackie Battley)," she told Esquire.

Gingrich divorced Marianne Gingrich 19 years later, after an affair with a younger congressional aide whom he married soon after his divorce. The third wife, Callista Bisek Gingrich, is now a major figure in his presidential campaign.

Jackie Gingrich Cushman wrote in May that she and her older sister, Kathy Gingrich Lubbers, "will not answer additional questions or make additional comments regarding this meaningless incident." Both sisters are actively involved in Gingrich's campaign for the Republican nomination.

The court documents obtained by CNN also shed light on the issue of the first-term congressman's record of offering support for Jackie Gingrich and the two girls during the separation and after the divorce.

The same court filing in which Jackie Gingrich told the judge she did not want the divorce also accused Gingrich of failing to provide enough money for her and her two then-teenaged daughters to live on during their separation. Kathy was 17 at the time.

"Despite repeated notice to plaintiff and requests by defendant, plaintiff has failed and refused to voluntarily provide reasonable support sufficient to include payment of usual and normal living expenses, including drugs, water, sewage, garbage, gas, electric and telephone service for defendant and the minor children," she said in court documents. "As a result, many of such accounts are two or three months past due with notices of intent to cut off service and gas and electricity."

When Jackie Gingrich and her daughters moved from their other home in Fairfax, Virginia, back to their house in Carrollton, Georgia, there were "no lights, no heat, no water, no food in the home," former Gingrich friend and academic colleague Carter said.

Carter, who helped collect donations for the family, said Gingrich "wouldn't give them a dime" in the first months of the separation.

"We had a food drive at First Baptist Church," Carter said. "The deacons went down and stocked her pantry."

Johnson, the former state legislator who was in Gingrich's Sunday school class, said when the church's minister asked him to donate money, he gave $100 to the fund.

A judge ordered Gingrich to appear in court a week after his wife filed her complaint. The result was a ruling that he bring the utility bills up to date and begin paying his wife $700 a month in temporary support until the case was settled.

Both sides reached an agreement three months later, avoiding the jury trial that Jackie Gingrich was demanding.

In 1994, Gingrich agreed to increase his alimony payments by $350 to $1,650 a month. In exchange, Jackie Gingrich waived her right to ask for future increases if her ex-husband's income increased. Gingrich is still paying alimony.

"When asked, Gingrich has admitted he has not led a perfect life and has at times had to go to God for forgiveness," Hammond said. "Over 30 years later, the family has long put these matters behind them."

Johnson, who later challenged Gingrich in the 1984 congressional race, said the divorce and controversy over the support payments caused a lot of negative feelings against Gingrich in his home county.

"I think the thing that bothered people most was everybody in Carrollton knew how much Jackie sacrificed to get Newt elected," Johnson said.

CNN asked Gingrich spokesman Hammond in an e-mail about the allegation made by Jackie Gingrich in her October 1980 court filing that Gingrich was not supporting his family during this period, but the statement the campaign released did not directly address that question.

Still, Johnson said there should be forgiveness and he would like to see Gingrich win the White House.

"Newt is the smartest candidate in the field this year and he would bring an intelligence to the White House that hasn't been there in quite a while," Johnson said.
 
Gingrich is such a douche. It always amazes me that people still take him even remotely seriously on anything. I can't fathom why one woman would marry him, let alone multiple women.

As for Ron Paul and those papers...eh, wouldn't surprise me if they were tied to him. He can say something very coherent and reasonable one minute, but then the next he can turn into a "crazy old ranting guy", so...who knows.

Nice to see you back here :wave:

Thanks :).
 
Republican voters have had their fun constantly shying away from Romney. It's like the fat guy at the party (Republican voters) knowing his only chance to get laid is with a girl he finds unattractive (Romney), so he wastes away the night trying to pick up more appealing chicks (i.e. more conservative ones) despite the fact the he has no chance to score with them (in other words, make the general election competitive).

Romney will start reaping in a crazy amount of endorsements and I think a lot of people will start telling Iowans that he's the only one with a shot in hell at beating Obama. They'll align behind him much quicker than people think and pretty much nobody else running has the ground troops to keep this thing going much longer other than Ron Paul, the candidate who will fare worse and worse once there's less candidates in the race since he can only win very fractured state contests.
 
As for Ron Paul...He can say something very coherent and reasonable one minute, but then the next he can turn into a "crazy old ranting guy", so...who knows.

Funny. Everyone on my Facebook is pulling for Ron Paul. I just don't see what people see in him. It's not like he has the best shot at beating Obama.:rolleyes:


Nice to see you back, Moonlit Angel. I myself haven't posted on Interference since the tour ended.:lol:
 
Funny. Everyone on my Facebook is pulling for Ron Paul. I just don't see what people see in him. It's not like he has the best shot at beating Obama.:rolleyes:

Eh, it's his anti-war stance that really gets people energized, I think (and his pro-legalized pot stance, too. Say that and you will get yourself LOADS of support, I don't care who you are). It's just a bit of a change from the stereotypical pompous, "family values", uber-religious, "God, guns, and country!" Republican crowd, that's what I think makes people notice him (Jon Huntsman might be okay, too...I've yet to hear him actually talk on TV, but I understand he's one of the more moderate ones?).

I'm still voting for Obama over any of the Republicans, period, though.

Nice to see you back, Moonlit Angel. I myself haven't posted on Interference since the tour ended.:lol:

LOL, thanks. I've literally been without internet most of the year-moved to a new apartment in April and it took us a bit before we could afford a computer for our place.
 
Mitt's correct- Newt has said at almost every debate that everyone on the stage would be better than Obama, and now he's backtracking.

Smart move by Romney, desperation by Gingrich.
 
Mitt's correct- Newt has said at almost every debate that everyone on the stage would be better than Obama, and now he's backtracking.

Smart move by Romney, desperation by Gingrich.

I think the distinction that Romney made and Gingrich did not, is clearly that while Ron Paul might say a lot of crazy things now its mostly talk. Fire up his base (whomever they are), get attention, etc.

Once in office Ron Paul would most definitely not stick to the things he is saying now. He doesn't have the intel that Obama currently has, he would probably change his mind on some policies (Iran) after 5 minutes of looking at said intel or briefings from his staff.

Obama ran on being an anti-war, anti-Iraq war, anti-Bush president. Before he even took office he won the Nobel peace prize. Three years later, he doubled down in Afghanistan, went into Pakistan and got OBL, had military operations in Libya, and we shall see if anything happens with Iran. While he did essentially pull the troops out of Iraq, its interesting to see how some peoples perceptions of him based on his message have changed.
 

Ron Paul has a decent following in the GOP - Libertarian circles, Romney is hoping to get them in the November election.

Newt sees other candidates as a direct threat to taking not-Romney voters away from him.

This race is down to Romney and the best surviving not-Romney candidate for at least the first few primaries. (the not-Romney candidates are hoping)
 
I think the distinction that Romney made and Gingrich did not, is clearly that while Ron Paul might say a lot of crazy things now its mostly talk. Fire up his base (whomever they are), get attention, etc.

Once in office Ron Paul would most definitely not stick to the things he is saying now. He doesn't have the intel that Obama currently has, he would probably change his mind on some policies (Iran) after 5 minutes of looking at said intel or briefings from his staff.

He might not be able to deliver on everything he is saying now, but he would definitely introduce significant change in US foreign policy strategy, or so I'd like to believe.

It needs to be firmly and clearly understood that Ron Paul, and Ron Paul's base, disagree fundamentally with the War Party's analysis that has guided US foreign policy since WWII (arguably WWI). It is a very fundamental ideological difference, and not simply a matter of disagreeing on what day-to-day tactics are correct with regard to the developing situation in Iraq, Iran, Libya, or whatever.
 
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