It appears that Newt Gingrich will suspend his campaign today. Speaking to a Republican crowd in North Carolina this morning, Gingrich said , “It’s pretty clear Governor Romney is going to be the nominee.” Many words could be used to describe the Newt 2012 campaign. Dull is not amongst them. Last summer, it appeared his campaign was over before it started with key staff defecting once Rick Perry entered the race. But following a series of impressive debate performances in which he challenged President Obama to seven one on one Lincoln-Douglas debates, Republican voters began to give Newt a second look. After Herman Cain’s troubles began last November, Newt shot to the top of the polls. However, as the Iowa Caucuses approached, the remaining candidates turned their attention to Newt and he did not whether the scrutiny well. Most damaging were the ads put out by PACs supporting Mitt Romney. Discontent from the Republican establishment didn’t help his cause either. Gingrich finished a distant fourth in both Iowa as the anti-Romney vote began to coalesce around Rick Santorum. Gingrich fared no better in New Hampshire with another fourth place finish. Yet Newt found a new lease on life in the days leading up to the South Carolina primary with two impressive debate performances centering on exchanges with Juan Williams of Fox News and John King of CNN. Both exchanges earned Newt standing ovations. As it turned out, they were the only standing ovations any candidates received during the GOP debates. What also worked for Newt was releasing his tax returns while Romney hemmed and hawed. Palmetto voters awarded him with a double digit victory over Mitt Romney. But the Romney Super PACs replicated in Florida what they had done in Iowa. Romney also outperformed Gingrich in two debates in Tampa and Jacksonville and ended up besting him in the Florida Primary by 15 points neutralizing Gingrich’s triumph in South Carolina ten days earlier. Newt never recovered. The only other contest he won was in his political base of Georgia on Super Tuesday. If Newt could not withstand the scrutiny of the Romney Super PACs then how could he possibly withstand the scrutiny of the even better funded Obama Super PACs? Since then, with campaign money running dry, Gingrich has been going through the motions and visiting zoos around the country. I think Newt will eventually endorse Romney but like Santorum I don’t think he’ll be in any great hurry to do it. Alas, Newt is not the new Nixon . There will be no more Newt to kick around.
“Hugo Chavez has the constitution of a horse,” said one Venezuelan official medical spokesman. If that’s true, the horse is limping in the paddock. Flying back and forth from Caracas to Havana, Chavez already has had three operations (one exploratory) and accompanying radiation treatments. He’s had two cancerous tumors removed — one reportedly the size of a baseball — from what has been described as “the pelvic area.” He’s not in the shape necessary to wage a vigorous campaign for his presidential reelection scheduled for this October. It would seem the Chavez era is in its final phase. While some would like to tie the disastrous civil security situation of robbery, drug trafficking, murder and kidnapping to Hugo Chavez’s absence from the scene of presidential authority, sources in the K&R (kidnapping and ransom) aspects of international insurance doubt that political connection. To them it’s just business as usual in Venezuela. The Venezuelan law enforcement community dashes from one high profile case to another as diplomats and wealthy businessmen are targeted. The reality is that even when Chavez was healthy, crime in Venezuela was endemic. The so-called “express kidnappings” in the past several years have become a trademark of criminal life in the cities as apparently well-to-do citizens are snatched off the streets. The victims are driven to appropriate bank cash machines and the money thus obtained becomes the instant ransom. Teams of bodyguards follow major businessmen and entertainment personalities everywhere, but it doesn’t stop “the game.” The environment of civil insecurity, however, has become so bad since Chavez’s indisposition that his loyalists now charge his opponents with inflating statistics and manufacturing crime stories in order to aid their own election prospects. Naturally this is denied, but it is obvious that anti-Chavez forces enjoy the timing of any increased breakdown of law and order. The first operation for the removal of Chavez’s tumor was treated as an unfortunate but not atypical health problem for a man of his age. The second operation of a smaller, but still cancerous, tumor carries an entirely different political tone. That there has been a blackout on any discussion of the exact nature of the cancer — other than to say it was in the pelvic region — has only encouraged speculation. Advanced prostate cancer is the current leader of the speculative list. It certainly does not look optimistic for Chavez’s political, or any other, future. Hugo Chavez has several close friends from his Army days on whom he counts for his regime’s political and physical protection. They find themselves in the unenviable position of having to fill in while the boss is hors de combat . Chavez had done an effective job of instructing his back-up team before his first major surgery, but this last time has been less well organized. The problem is that the reelection campaign is full upon Chavez’s supporters. His most trusted lieutenants tend to find overwhelming the handling of those issues as well as running a government beset by waves of criminality in the streets, offices, and homes. Undoubtedly Chavez will do all he can to remain in power and his illness may produce an outpouring of sympathy that will overwhelm the usual partisanship in Venezuelan politics. One can be sure, however, that behind locked doors of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is a vigorous discussion of how to deal with alternatives arising from President Chavez’s health problem. The need for creating solutions for several scenarios involving recovery, convalescence, continued indisposition, etc. during the period leading up to the election in October is currently a matter of priority consideration, to say the least. Leading the race of opposition figures to replace Hugo Chavez is the youthful and athletic 39-year-old governor of the state of Miranda, Henrique Capriles. While still polling far behind Chavez, Capriles has captured the attention of the entire range of opposition groups and now provides a striking alternative to the ailing and prematurely aging socialist leader. As the months progress, Chavez’s inability to keep up with the “new boy on the block” will become even more apparent. If Chavez should physically falter, his left-wing mantle will be picked up by one of his compadres who have served with him during the past 13 years. One of the leading PSUV candidates is Diosdado Cabello, now minister of Housing and Public Affairs as well as head of the Venezuelan Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL). The latter position provides Cabello with considerable leverage in electioneering. The fact that his brother heads the Venezuelan internal revenue service doesn’t hurt either. Under Chavez Venezuela has become a benefactor to many anti-U.S. elements around the world. Countries from Latin America to Africa have come to count on his very personalized aid programs. Chavez’s departure from active politics will have an international effect, something that Iran and even Russia will find disadvantageous. The die is cast, however. Hugo Chavez is playing out his final act — if not scene.
Follow this link:
Chavez’s Last Stand
Drummer, guitarist, mandolin player, singer and actor Levon Helm, best known for his tenure with The Band,
Stand clear! Giants rolling around in the media dust!! It all began with a simple challenge to the actual results of a liberal program. On Sean Hannity’s show the other night, Americans for Prosperity’s Jennifer Stefano challenged Bob Beckel with what Ronald Reagan used to joke about: liberals who know so much – all of it wrong. This is a fun thing to do with Bob Beckel, as the nation has learned through liberal true-believer Beckel’s appearances on Hannity’s TV show and now with Beckel as a co-host of his own show, The Five . Apparently during the commercial break Stefano had sufficiently exercised Beckel’s legendary impatience with conservatives, and as the show returned to the air, with Hannity noting “we’re back”….Beckel dropped , as they say, the “F-bomb.” Astonishing Hannity and doubtless America. Once understanding he had said it on the air, Beckel apologized. Although not for the “intent.” I’ve met Bob Beckel a couple times, the last time on this very segment of the Hannity show. Beckel, liberal politics notwithstanding, is a good soul
RedState Morning Briefing April 19, 2012 Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge. Folks, burning the candle at both ends has caught up with me and I’m in need of a bit of rest. The content will continue on RedState, but on Thursday and Friday I don’t expect to send out the Morning Briefing unless there is a big story or breaking news. Sorry for any inconvenience. Thanks, Erick 1. What is the Cost of EPA Interference? 2. The Meme War We Must Win 3. The Left’s expected, contemptible, and blatant hypocrisy over ALEC and stand-your-ground laws. 4. Ron Johnson: The Lone Ranger ———————————————————————- 1. What is the Cost of EPA Interference? I’ve written several posts here about the cost of EPA interference in our lives. Estimates of job losses at the hands of the supposedly well-intentioned Environmental Protection Agency are in the millions. As Lisa Jackson’s EPA continues its unrelenting war against coal, an obvious thing is going to happen: the cost of powering your home and your daily life is going to go up. In fact, it’s going to skyrocket. Don’t take it from me, take it from the man himself. Please click here for the rest of the post. 2. The Meme War We Must Win In the past week the presidential campaign has been hit by two events that many have termed silly. First there was the Hilary Rosen comment denigrating Ann Romney’s decision to stay at home and actually raise her children rather than elect to have a stranger do that. Second was the softer Seamus-on-the-roof story rolled out by the Obama campaign yesterday. Many, especially our own “smart set”, have criticized the attention these events have attracted as somehow taking away from the high minded policy discussion that is supposedly taking place. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Please click here for the rest of the post. 3. The Left’s expected, contemptible, and blatant hypocrisy over ALEC and stand-your-ground laws. I’m not really all that into blogging about the Zimmerman/Martin shooting. From what I can tell, what happened was that there was an confrontation that might have very well been avoidable; it ended with a genuinely tragic ending; and that there were actually pretty much no wider partisan implications at all, despite the attempts of the Online Left to fit a Latino Democrat onto the Procrustean bed of WASP Tea Partier. All of which is contemptible of the Online Left, by the way. Expected, but contemptible. Still, the news that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has decided to stop working on criminal bill advocacy because of liberal push back on ALEC’s work on stand-your-ground laws is of interest. Said laws, for those unaware of them, essentially confirm the right of a citizen to defend themselves if attacked; and (as Clayton Cramer and Glenn Reynolds note) such laws are very important from a feminist perspective. Particularly when we’re talking about, say, battered women. Amazing how quickly people on the Left stop caring about that sort of thing when it gets into the way of going after perceived Righty groups, right? Again: expected, and contemptible. Please click here for the rest of the post. 4. Ron Johnson: The Lone Ranger Senator Kent Conrad has finally made it clear that he has no intentions of passing a budget resolution. He will offer the “Simpson-Bowles plan” without allowing any amendments or even a committee vote, much less a floor vote. That’s some budget resolution. Without a budget resolution to guide the topline spending numbers, the Senate Appropriations Committee has already begun markups on the 12 appropriations bills at the subcommittee level. It goes without saying that Senate Republicans wouldn’t reward this behavior by voting for their approps bills – spending bills that fail to eliminate a single wasteful program or agency within the burgeoning government bureaucracy. There is no way they would help grant Harry Reid superior leverage over their allies in the House like they did last year, right? Wrong. Please click here for the rest of the post.
Read more:
Morning Briefing for April 19, 2012
