Today marks the beginning of our new special report, a breakdown of all the potential candidates for the Republican Nomination for the 2012 election. Every few days I’ll pick a potential candidate, give you the rundown on his views and what he stands for, and give you my personal opinion them. Our first will be the only candidate who has made legitimate first steps to pursuing a primary campaign, Newt Gingrich. Newt is certainly an interesting candidate in the upcoming elections, a long-time political insider who once fought a budget battle against President Clinton as Speaker of the House, Newt has considerable experience working in our nation’s capital, experience that may help him raise funds and garner political support but hurt him with the conservative anti-incumbent right. Gingrich also has quite a few issues to address in his personal life. But first let’s take a look at his stance on some of the major issues:
The Economy
Like many of the fiscally conservative candidates considering primary runs, Gingrich has made it a point to go on record saying he has always opposed the stimulus package and the bailouts of the auto companies. Even before the Gingrich Congress of the mid-90s, Newt has been a staunch believer in low taxes, less government regulation and less public spending to let the economy grow. At a time like this, where the growing federal budget is on everyone’s mind and fiscal conservatism is the way to go, these Reaganesque views may serve him well in both the primary and the general election.
This current battle over the debt ceiling and the attempts to curb federal spending is hauntingly familiar to Gingrich, who found himself in the same position 15 years ago that Speaker Boehner does now. Newt’s eventual mishandling of the situation, and public complaining about President Clinton’s “insult” aboard Air Force One delivered a crushing blow to both his budget battle and his popularity at the time. Expect to see this mentioned a lot against him in the coming months. The key is to see how he handles these criticisms, is he able to spin the insults and turn the situation 15 years ago into valuable experience he would bring to the White House. I for one am skeptical he can overcome the negative image he exacerbated as Speaker of the House.
Education
In 2007 Newt Gingrich was recorded as saying America’s high schools are obsolete, that for a nation that spends so much money on education we are rapidly losing our competitive edge in the global sphere. Gingrich supports the creation of charter schools in areas where public schools are failing, and the use of private sponsored scholarships to help exceptional students get by in schools that are “hopeless”. He also supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer and proposes that only schools which allow prayer in school can be eligible for public funding. His ideas are party-line conservative and will serve him just fine in a primary, but in the absence of a new or cutting edge idea these views will not help him win over any moderates in the general election.
The only potential revolutionary ideas he has put forth for education is an incentive program he wants to test where upper-level students are given an economic reward for taking more difficult classes in math and science. The idea of promoting educational excellence will appeal to a broad base of voters, but may hurt him with the budget hawks. The idea is still untested and may not even be a factor in the coming campaign.
On the social issues, Newt is a party-line conservative. He is pro-gun, anti gay marriage, and pro-life. No big surprise there, it’s going to be extremely difficult for any moderate Republican to stand a legitimate chance at winning a primary with the menacing Tea Party force out there.
Ups and Downs
Gingrich has a few things working in his favor as he enters the field. He is a political insider, and has many friends on and around Capitol Hill. Because of this he should have no problem raising plenty of money for his campaign, and getting endorsements from other politicians and interest groups around the nation. He knows how to run a Federal campaign, and has not been known to flip-flop on many issues. There are also still some who were very pleased with his job as Speaker and would jump at the chance to support him in a presidential run.
While he may have the experience that comes with being a long-time lobbyist and politician, he also has the baggage that comes with public scandals that sour his past. Newt is on his third wife, and has not been faithful to the women he has been married to in the past. He can claim a conversion to Christianity opened his eyes all he want, he is going to have a hard time convincing the evangelical right that he is a moral individual. Compound that with his image of being a petty fool during the budget battle against President Clinton, and this could be a long eventful race for the ex-Speaker.
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