Not choking in a life-threatening way of course.
IF this
latest poll is accurate, showing Hoffman now leading the
three-way race in New York's special congresional election, then
Newt Gingrich, Pete Sessions, John Boehner, and all the party
hacks, including the NRCC staff who reportedly helped talk the
local New Yorkers into endorsing Dede Scozzafava, will be eating
so much rancid crow that they are bound to cough and choke and
splutter. And they will deserve every bit of it. And this is
before news of Scozzafava's
latest ethical questions had any real chance to permeate the
consciousness of voters. Frankly, Newt Gingrich should be
ashamed. He has been Beltwayed.
I say this with mixed feelings. Gingrich always has been a great
"big picture" guy, but despite all of his outsider rhetoric, he
has a tendency to be overly taken with the personal concerns of
the congressional GOP and with tactical considerations that put
him at odds with the broad centre-right that he claims as his
main audience. He did it back in 1998 when he pushed rules for
impeachment proceedings that were way too stringent, without
necessity. Of about 12 procedural items put forth in Dick
Gephardt's proposal that Gingrich rejected out of hand, about 10
of them were utterly fair and ENDED UP BEING USED ANYWAY after
the GOP lost ground in the fall elections. The main thing to
which Gingrich objected was a deadline for deciding on
impeachment -- and then, lo and behold, having rejected
Gephardt's deadline as part of the rules, they rushed to beat the
deadline de facto anyway. What happened was that in order to hold
the moderates in line on the punitive impeachment rules (when
less punitive rules still would have done the job), Gingrich
agreed to cave on the spending fight with Clinton and give the
moderates all their pork. Result: Disgusted Perot voters were
doubly angry: First, because they were turned off by the maniacal
impeachment focus (yes, Clinton should have been impeached, but
it should not have been made to look like a personal vendetta,
which is how Gingrich let it come across); and second, far worse,
because they resented the capitulation on spending. Meanwhile,
demoralized conservatives stayed home, and the GOP lost seats.
Why is all this relevant now? Because once again Gingrich has
lost touch with the concerns of the people he should be listening
to. Right now the broader public, not just hardline
conservatives, are in an anti-establishment mood. Yet Gingrich
has sided with the establishment, and with a professional
politician, against a self-made outside businessman getting into
politics due to principle. The public is more pro-life now than
it has been in decades of polling, yet Gingrich is with the
winner of the Margaret Sanger award. The public is overwhelmingly
against eliminating the secret ballot for union elections, yet
Gingrich is with the ally of the union bosses. The public
-- not just right-wingers -- are furious about bigger and
bigger government, and opposed the stimulus package, but Gingrich
is with the support of the stimulus. Plus, Gingrich is with the
candidate dogged with ethics questions and with siccing the
police on a reporter. And so on.
It is appropos that Doug Hoffman was comptroller for the 1980
Lake Placid Olympics. Speaking purely as an observer, not an
advocate, one does not have to strain to make the analogy that
posits Hoffman as the U.S. hockey team, while Gingrich sticks
with the Soviets.
