From GOP Reject to Presidential Candidate?

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, recently appeared on Fox News Sunday. During the interview, Chris Wallace asked Mr. Gingrich about a possible presidential run. Unfortunately, for Mr. Gingrich a new Fox poll found that more than 60% of the country will not vote for the former speaker. When asked about these high negatives, Mr. Gingrich blamed bad press and what he cryptically termed "some mistakes" during his time as speaker. By mistakes could he be referring to his disastrous decision to shut down the federal government in a pissing match with President Clinton? Or perhaps he means his ethics scandals or personal failures?

Regardless of whatever "mistakes" Mr. Gingrich is referring to, the Republican party forced him out of his leadership position after his handling of the misguided Clinton Impeachment, which ultimately led to Republican losses in the 1998 midterm elections.

Mr. Gingrich is dreaming if he thinks the country has forgotten his dismal House leadership. As such, any Gingrich presidential run would have to answer the following: if he wasn't good enough to lead his own party, why should Americans trust him to lead the country?

Romney's Blind Spot

Willard "Slick" Mitt Romney made it official, he's running for President. His campaign centers on transforming a broken system in Washington DC. In his announcement address, Mr. Romney put it bluntly "We have lost faith in government." Lucky for us he's riding to the rescue.

While Mr. Romney's speech was long on a vision of "innovation and transformation" to magically restore lost faith, his vision contains a significant blind spot. Mainly, he failed to identify even a single factor contributing to our nation's current state. Can Mr. Romney restore a nation's faith, if he doesn't see the reason for its loss?

How can it be Mr. Romney can't see the source of the problem? Perhaps its because he doesn't want to recognize the fact that for past six years the republican party, his party, has exercised nearly unlimited control of the country's executive, judicial, and legislative powers. What has America gotten from republican leadership? In Mr. Romney's words, a government "clogged with petty politics and stuffed with peddlers of influence."

In his announcement, Mr. Romney identifies the types of people (Washington insiders, non-governors, non-business owners) that are incapable of turning the situation around. He may want to add one more category to the list: member of the republican party.

Democratic Sizzle, Republican Fizzle!

With the announcement over the weekend of Senator Barack Obama's candidacy for the President, the Democratic field now appears set. What a field it is! Any one of the top three candidates (Clinton, Edwards, or Obama) would make a far better President than our current leader. Buzz surrounding the Democratic field has never been higher. See here, here, and here.

Compare that to the republicans' current slate of candidates. All have significant PR problems. The flip flopping duo of John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani are falling all over themselves to attract the extreme right vote. Good luck John and Rudolph playing the republican base for dupes. Meanwhile Willard "slick" Mitt Romney appears to have fallen off the radar screen, and finds it hard to convince party faithfuls he's their guy. As such, a lack excitement surrounding the republican field has them infighting to attract attention.

Bring on the campaign!

Will the real republicans please stand up?

You've got to hand it to republicans, they never let reality come in the way of their propaganda. Case in point, GOP mouthpieces are pushing the line that Democratic candidates in the recent mid-term elections "ran as republicans to get elected." Click here.

This might come a surprise to some former legislators such as Richard Pombo, Conrad Burns, Rick Santorum or George Allen who ran as true conservative republicans and often labeled their Democratic opponents as "weak" and without ideas.

Republican apologists can spin their crushing November defeat any they want, but the truth is simply this, in each of the above races Democratic candidates defeated staunch republican opponents by running to their left.