"How Long Can Newt Last? Data Suggests A Short Ride"

(N)ew(t).

"How Long Can Newt Last? Data Suggests A Short Ride"

Yeah, that's why he prefers blowjobs.

I'd like to play Line Rider on that graph.

Just like his time as Speaker.

Come on, Republicans! Santorum next!

P.S. Firefox spellcheck doesn't recognize Santorum, recommending sanatorium.

Two typos in an article that short invalidate the conclusions.

Not sure how he got to the lead, never met another republican that even considers him a valid candidate let alone supports him.

Five Minute Standup: "How Long Can Newt Last? Data Suggests A Short Ride"

Yeah, that's why he prefers blowjobs.


//Hot, the link, not the image

So who's up next? Santorum?

Santorum? Yes. The drooling wingnuts at my favorite online Teabagger Nest actually had a recent discussion to the effect of "honestly, why aren't we taking a second look at Santorum?"

And they were being serious. Deadly serious.

HUNTSMAN is up next. Unlike Santorum, there are no decades-old bad memories associated with him.

GentDirkly: HUNTSMAN is up next. Unlike Santorum, there are no decades-old bad memories associated with him.

AND no recent video of him condemning an active-duty soldier for his personal life.

GentDirkly: HUNTSMAN is up next. Unlike Santorum, there are no decades-old bad memories associated with him.

I disagree. Santorum will briefly be up next. I don't think the "anyone but Romney" contingent actually sees a significant enough difference between Huntsman and Romney (both of whom they see as RINOs in magic underpants) to bother giving Huntsman a second look.

GentDirkly: GentDirkly: HUNTSMAN is up next. Unlike Santorum, there are no decades-old bad memories associated with him.

AND no recent video of him condemning an active-duty soldier for his personal life.

This is what the base likes. They're not going to go to Huntsman, a moderate Morman.

Maybe this is Ron Paul's time.

According to the newest polling data, Newt can expect a very, very short stay at the top


or not...

yer blog is sucky.

"Anybody but Romney" has less and less to do with religion. It has to do with a lack of trust. It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

moralpanic: Maybe this is Ron Paul's time.

You're right. The ideological gulf between Cain and Gingrich is just as small as that between Gingrich and Paul. It'll be a natural jump!

GentDirkly: It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

But Hunstman is regularly on the "wrong" side of the issues.

I don't see that as a selling point to the GOP base.

GentDirkly: "Anybody but Romney" has less and less to do with religion. It has to do with a lack of trust. It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

Yeah, but I'm pretty liberal and I like Huntsman way more than most Republicans I know. I have no idea what that means.

GentDirkly: "Anybody but Romney" has less and less to do with religion. It has to do with a lack of trust. It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

Huntsman was, under Obama, the US Ambassador to a communist country. In some (logic impaired) circles that means he's a communist, or at least a communist sympathizer. There is a significant enough portion of the right that will never take him seriously that he doesn't stand a chance in this cycle. Hopefully, for the sake of moderate sane Republicans, the GOP will back away from the derp cliff and he'll have better luck in 2016.

Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: GentDirkly: "Anybody but Romney" has less and less to do with religion. It has to do with a lack of trust. It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

Yeah, but I'm pretty liberal and I like Huntsman way more than most Republicans I know. I have no idea what that means.

The fact that liberals like him means that he's pretty much like John McCain in 2000.

He also has an adopted child from India. [Insert joke about South Carolina push-poll.]

Skleenar:
But Hunstman is regularly on the "wrong" side of the issues.

I don't see that as a selling point to the GOP base.

Huntsman is on the right side of the issues of school choice, guns, and abortion, and has never wavered. His opinion on the efficacy and necessity of cap-and-trade is the ONLY negative on him from the conservative viewpoint.

If he said he still believes global warming will hurt America but now believes cap and trade won't help, so it won't be attempted any longer, that would be as good as a full recanting. There are economists and scientists already taking that view of cap and trade.

His opinion on evolution is rendered moot by his opinion on school choice.

HighOnCraic: Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: GentDirkly: "Anybody but Romney" has less and less to do with religion. It has to do with a lack of trust. It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

Yeah, but I'm pretty liberal and I like Huntsman way more than most Republicans I know. I have no idea what that means.

The fact that liberals like him means that he's pretty much like John McCain in 2000.

He also has an adopted child from India. [Insert joke about South Carolina push-poll.]

Liberals like him because he's an underdog. As the underdog he has to join with liberals in criticizing the flaws he sees in the frontrunners. If he becomes the frontrunner, liberals will not like him anymore, because at that point he will cease criticizing his fellow conservatives and focus on Obama. See McCain, 2008.

GentDirkly: Liberals like him because he's an underdog. As the underdog he has to join with liberals in criticizing the flaws he sees in the frontrunners. If he becomes the frontrunner, liberals will not like him anymore, because at that point he will cease criticizing his fellow conservatives and focus on Obama. See McCain, 2008.

I disagree.

I, like lots of liberals, did indeed like John McCain. Unfortunately the John McCain that I liked was John McCain 2000. The 2008 model (with the Palin accessory pack) was a totally different man. Whether that change was merely pandering to "the base" or a genuine shift in his opinions I cannot say, but as a liberal it drove me (and, obviously, lots of moderates, swing voters, reagan democrats etc) far away. Even still, the hard right teaparty faction of the GOP found him too left-leaning and are to this day calling him a RINO and blaming him (not their St. Sarah) for the Republican's loss to Obama.

Huntsman may be the same, but he's saddled with even more baggage that makes him a RINO in the eyes of the teabaggers. He's worked for Obama as an ambassador. He speaks Chinese. He's the wrong flavour of Christian. The guy might as well be wearing a dress and a Che Guevara beret.

Liberals like Huntsman because he's educated, diplomatic, doesn't seem to be a rabid fundementalist and doesn't think that president Obama is a Kenyan vampire who sacrifices white babies to Satan. Those same traits are seen as "negatives" to the base.

Bill_Wick's_Friend:
I, like lots of liberals, did indeed like John McCain. Unfortunately the John McCain that I liked was John McCain 2000. The 2008 model (with the Palin accessory pack) was a totally different man. Whether that change was merely pandering to "the base" or a genuine shift in his opinions I cannot say, but as a liberal it drove me (and, obviously, lots of moderates, swing voters, reagan democrats etc) far away.

Just the opinion of one guy here, but I think the change was in you. McCain never stopped believing in publicly financed campaigns (which was part of the reason liberals liked him in 2000), and a military free of open homosexuality (which was distasteful to them in 2008), to give two examples.

GentDirkly: HighOnCraic: Duke Phillips' Singing Bears: GentDirkly: "Anybody but Romney" has less and less to do with religion. It has to do with a lack of trust. It's hard to find an issue that Romney hasn't been on both sides of. You can't say that about Huntsman and that will become more clear to more people soon.

Yeah, but I'm pretty liberal and I like Huntsman way more than most Republicans I know. I have no idea what that means.

The fact that liberals like him means that he's pretty much like John McCain in 2000.

He also has an adopted child from India. [Insert joke about South Carolina push-poll.]

Liberals like him because he's an underdog. As the underdog he has to join with liberals in criticizing the flaws he sees in the frontrunners. If he becomes the frontrunner, liberals will not like him anymore, because at that point he will cease criticizing his fellow conservatives and focus on Obama. See McCain, 2008.

Liberals liked McCain when he criticized Bush and the religious right, and stopped liking him when he literally embraced Bush and the religious right. He had a lot of liberal fans when he won the New Hampshire primary (and hence was not the underdog).

It will be interesting to see if Huntsman is bold enough to describe the religous right as "agents of intolerance."

But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged,
Grendel... er...

Gingrich

HighOnCraic:

Liberals liked McCain when he criticized Bush and the religious right, and stopped liking him when he literally embraced Bush and the religious right. He had a lot of liberal fans when he won the New Hampshire primary (and hence was not the underdog).

It will be interesting to see if Huntsman is bold enough to describe the religous right as "agents of intolerance."

He criticized those guys because he failed to get their endorsement in 2000, not beforehand. They started the fight with McCain, without warning, and it mostly had to do with campaign finance law. The Moral Majority saw that as a threat to what they do. Those guys blindsided him around the time of the South Carolina primary with some nasty tricks that to this day they have not fully admitted to, done in such a way that Bush would (and did) have plausible deniability.

In 2008 he made sure to get their endorsement by meeting and discussing directly with them, and by this time Moral Majority had lost nearly all of its clout. McCain's campaign finance law was on the books (signed by Bush, no less, who was wise to not speak about his views on the issue in 2000), so all parties were willing to move on.

But he didn't change any of his views on church-state relations or moral issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/news/29iht-bush.2.t_9.html?pagewant e d=all

we'll be in a huge mess when Santorum's on top...
*shudders*

GentDirkly: HighOnCraic:

Liberals liked McCain when he criticized Bush and the religious right, and stopped liking him when he literally embraced Bush and the religious right. He had a lot of liberal fans when he won the New Hampshire primary (and hence was not the underdog).

It will be interesting to see if Huntsman is bold enough to describe the religous right as "agents of intolerance."

He criticized those guys because he failed to get their endorsement in 2000, not beforehand. They started the fight with McCain, without warning, and it mostly had to do with campaign finance law. The Moral Majority saw that as a threat to what they do. Those guys blindsided him around the time of the South Carolina primary with some nasty tricks that to this day they have not fully admitted to, done in such a way that Bush would (and did) have plausible deniability.

In 2008 he made sure to get their endorsement by meeting and discussing directly with them, and by this time Moral Majority had lost nearly all of its clout. McCain's campaign finance law was on the books (signed by Bush, no less, who was wise to not speak about his views on the issue in 2000), so all parties were willing to move on.

But he didn't change any of his views on church-state relations or moral issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/news/29iht-bush.2.t_9.html?pagewant e d=all

I'll have to re-read the linked article; a quick glimpse didn't show any evidence that McCain courted the religious right and went after them after being spurned. It seemed like he was going after the moderate and independent vote.

And I remember the dirty tricks they pulled on McCain in South Carolina (hence my joke about Huntsman's adopted daughter and the push-poll).

For the most part, we're on the same page, even if we don't completely agree. I'm finding it hard to get too caught up in a fight with someone named GentDirkly, having just finished reading "The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" last week.

HighOnCraic: GentDirkly: HighOnCraic:

Liberals liked McCain when he criticized Bush and the religious right, and stopped liking him when he literally embraced Bush and the religious right. He had a lot of liberal fans when he won the New Hampshire primary (and hence was not the underdog).

It will be interesting to see if Huntsman is bold enough to describe the religous right as "agents of intolerance."

He criticized those guys because he failed to get their endorsement in 2000, not beforehand. They started the fight with McCain, without warning, and it mostly had to do with campaign finance law. The Moral Majority saw that as a threat to what they do. Those guys blindsided him around the time of the South Carolina primary with some nasty tricks that to this day they have not fully admitted to, done in such a way that Bush would (and did) have plausible deniability.

In 2008 he made sure to get their endorsement by meeting and discussing directly with them, and by this time Moral Majority had lost nearly all of its clout. McCain's campaign finance law was on the books (signed by Bush, no less, who was wise to not speak about his views on the issue in 2000), so all parties were willing to move on.

But he didn't change any of his views on church-state relations or moral issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/news/29iht-bush.2.t_9.html?pagewant e d=all

I'll have to re-read the linked article; a quick glimpse didn't show any evidence that McCain courted the religious right and went after them after being spurned. It seemed like he was going after the moderate and independent vote.

And I remember the dirty tricks they pulled on McCain in South Carolina (hence my joke about Huntsman's adopted daughter and the push-poll).

For the most part, we're on the same page, even if we don't completely agree. I'm finding it hard to get too caught up in a fight with someone named GentDirkly, having just finished reading "The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" last week.

The crux of the issue is that there is often a disconnect between the views and values of a politician and the type of people he successfully attracts. You can't assume that because someone had success in attracting the vote of a certain type of person in a given election cycle, that they belong with that group. You can't assume the reverse. McCain was always attending Baptist services, though he also called himself Episcopalian out of deference to his father. He clearly did not believe in everything the Baptist church taught because he was not re-baptized, but evangelicals are about evenly split on the pedo-credo issue.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996351,00.html
http://www.christianpost.com/news/mccain-i-m-baptist-not-episcopalian - 29334/

Romney/Huntsman will be like Fidel/Guevara in the 1960 Cuban elections.

Do you want socialism or communism? You decide.

GentDirkly: HighOnCraic: GentDirkly: HighOnCraic:

Liberals liked McCain when he criticized Bush and the religious right, and stopped liking him when he literally embraced Bush and the religious right. He had a lot of liberal fans when he won the New Hampshire primary (and hence was not the underdog).

It will be interesting to see if Huntsman is bold enough to describe the religous right as "agents of intolerance."

He criticized those guys because he failed to get their endorsement in 2000, not beforehand. They started the fight with McCain, without warning, and it mostly had to do with campaign finance law. The Moral Majority saw that as a threat to what they do. Those guys blindsided him around the time of the South Carolina primary with some nasty tricks that to this day they have not fully admitted to, done in such a way that Bush would (and did) have plausible deniability.

In 2008 he made sure to get their endorsement by meeting and discussing directly with them, and by this time Moral Majority had lost nearly all of its clout. McCain's campaign finance law was on the books (signed by Bush, no less, who was wise to not speak about his views on the issue in 2000), so all parties were willing to move on.

But he didn't change any of his views on church-state relations or moral issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/29/news/29iht-bush.2.t_9.html?pagewant e d=all

I'll have to re-read the linked article; a quick glimpse didn't show any evidence that McCain courted the religious right and went after them after being spurned. It seemed like he was going after the moderate and independent vote.

And I remember the dirty tricks they pulled on McCain in South Carolina (hence my joke about Huntsman's adopted daughter and the push-poll).

For the most part, we're on the same page, even if we don't completely agree. I'm finding it hard to get too caught up in a fight with someone named GentDirkly, having just finished reading "The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" last week.

The crux of the issue is that there is often a disconnect between the views and values of a politician and the type of people he successfully attracts. You can't assume that because someone had success in attracting the vote of a certain type of person in a given election cycle, that they belong with that group. You can't assume the reverse. McCain was always attending Baptist services, though he also called himself Episcopalian out of deference to his father. He clearly did not believe in everything the Baptist church taught because he was not re-baptized, but evangelicals are about evenly split on the pedo-credo issue.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996351,00.html
http://www.christianpost.com/news/mccain-i-m-baptist-not-episcopalian - 29334/

Getting back to Huntsman, it'll be hard for him to attack Obama on the issue of jobs; Obama might come back with, "Hey, I got YOU a job, didn't I?"

/Seriously though, he's been in the race for a while and hasn't (as far as I know) broken the 10% line in any polls. There's still a long way to go, but it doesn't seem like he can do enough to fire up the base.

Great comment after the article:

The whole process makes me think of when I'm working on a project around the house and I go down into the cellar to rummage through various cans and jars for the the right sized screw for the job...
"Nope...nope...well, this one might work...nope...nope...what the hell is that and how did it get in here?...nope...ew...I think that might have been alive at one point...nope...nope...

Funk Brothers: Romney/Huntsman will be like Fidel/Guevara in the 1960 Cuban elections.

Do you want socialism or communism? You decide.

would it kill you guys to learn what those words actually mean?

apoptotic: Huntsman was, under Obama, the US Ambassador to a communist country

Actually, he was Ambassador to China. We don't have an Ambassador to North Korea or Cuba.

Time at the top still expected t last longer than his fidelity to his wife.

0Icky0: apoptotic: Huntsman was, under Obama, the US Ambassador to a communist country

Actually, he was Ambassador to China. We don't have an Ambassador to North Korea or Cuba.

I'm confused. Are you saying that a country under the constitutionally entrenched rule of the Communist Party of China wouldn't be seen by the GOP's target demographic as being a communist country?

apoptotic: I'm confused. Are you saying that a country under the constitutionally entrenched rule of the Communist Party of China wouldn't be seen by the GOP's target demographic as being a communist country?

I suppose they might see it that way.
But it didn't bother them that George Bush (the Smarter) was Ambassador to China when China was still communists.