Can Newt Be the First Openly Mean President?

[nhboy (Premo)]

Link to original article.

"The former GOP House speaker is enjoying a bump, but nasty candidates tend to finish last.

We are officially in the midst of a Newt Gingrich boom.

You didn't notice? ABC News, pointing out that the former House speaker has leaped to third place in the GOP 2012 contest with 10 percent support in a recent poll, reported, "For Newt Gingrich, the tides seem to have turned." The Washington Post's political über-junkie Chris Cillizza wrote: "Don't call it a comeback! Actually, do. Sort of." He notes that a series of decent debate performances have vaulted Gingrich, whose campaign has been marred by profound disorganization and embarrassing revelations about Tiffany's expense accounts, into the tier between top-tier and second-tier, behind Herman Cain and Mitt Romney. So with the Newt rehab underway, it may be an opportune time to ask: Is Gingrich too mean to be president?

Gingrich is by far the nastiest of the pack. Last spring, Tim Murphy and I posted a compendium of the highlights—or lowlights—of his three-decades-long career of rhetorical bomb-throwing. From the moment he was first elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich has made mudslinging a specialty. He has routinely compared opponents to Nazis or to Nazi appeasers. (It can be confusing.) He has counseled fellow Republicans to accuse Democrats of treason. Last year, he derided President Obama for being "fundamentally out of touch with how the world works" and asked, "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.

Gingrich has always draped fierce opposition in poisonous maliciousness. That has usually not been a recipe for success in presidential politics. For most political consultants and observers, it's an article of faith that voters tend to embrace optimistic and sunny-side presidential candidates, even when times are tough. Has there been a mean president? Not since Richard Nixon—and he generally kept the depths of his pathological vileness (such as a plan to firebomb the Brookings Institution) out of the public view. Jimmy Carter was a touch dour, but not vicious. Reagan did mean things—such as firing the air traffic controllers and backing death-squad-connected leaders in Latin America—but always with that Hollywood smile. George Bush the First exuded a Republican noblesse oblige. Bill Clinton was a good ol' boy policy wonk. Bush the Second, it was said, was the sort of fellow you'd want to have a beer with (except for maybe during his mean-drunk days). Obama is nothing if not well mannered."

[SamSpade]

"he derided President Obama for being "fundamentally out of touch with how the world works" "

Wow. That just leaves the frogs standing! The Democrats, MoveOn - they got nothing on that.

I mean, just how mean can one person be?

[vraiblonde]

[Merlin99 (Premo)]

Originally Posted by nhboy

Link to original article.

"The former GOP House speaker is enjoying a bump, but nasty candidates tend to finish last.

We are officially in the midst of a Newt Gingrich boom.

You didn't notice? ABC News, pointing out that the former House speaker has leaped to third place in the GOP 2012 contest with 10 percent support in a recent poll, reported, "For Newt Gingrich, the tides seem to have turned." The Washington Post's political über-junkie Chris Cillizza wrote: "Don't call it a comeback! Actually, do. Sort of." He notes that a series of decent debate performances have vaulted Gingrich, whose campaign has been marred by profound disorganization and embarrassing revelations about Tiffany's expense accounts, into the tier between top-tier and second-tier, behind Herman Cain and Mitt Romney. So with the Newt rehab underway, it may be an opportune time to ask: Is Gingrich too mean to be president?

Gingrich is by far the nastiest of the pack. Last spring, Tim Murphy and I posted a compendium of the highlights—or lowlights—of his three-decades-long career of rhetorical bomb-throwing. From the moment he was first elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich has made mudslinging a specialty. He has routinely compared opponents to Nazis or to Nazi appeasers. (It can be confusing.) He has counseled fellow Republicans to accuse Democrats of treason. Last year, he derided President Obama for being "fundamentally out of touch with how the world works" and asked, "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.

Gingrich has always draped fierce opposition in poisonous maliciousness. That has usually not been a recipe for success in presidential politics. For most political consultants and observers, it's an article of faith that voters tend to embrace optimistic and sunny-side presidential candidates, even when times are tough. Has there been a mean president? Not since Richard Nixon—and he generally kept the depths of his pathological vileness (such as a plan to firebomb the Brookings Institution) out of the public view. Jimmy Carter was a touch dour, but not vicious. Reagan did mean things—such as firing the air traffic controllers and backing death-squad-connected leaders in Latin America—but always with that Hollywood smile. George Bush the First exuded a Republican noblesse oblige. Bill Clinton was a good ol' boy policy wonk. Bush the Second, it was said, was the sort of fellow you'd want to have a beer with (except for maybe during his mean-drunk days). Obama is nothing if not well mannered."

At least we won't have to worry about a president Pelosi.

[This_person]

Originally Posted by nhboy

can-newt-gingrich-be-first-openly-mean-president

I don't think that's possible. I think most Democrat presidents from the formation of the party have been pretty mean and racist:

The Democratic Party was formed in 1792, when supporters of Thomas Jefferson began using the name Republicans, or Jeffersonian Republicans, to emphasize its anti-aristocratic policies. It adopted its present name during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. In the 1840s and '50s, the party was in conflict over extending slavery to the Western territories. Southern Democrats insisted on protecting slavery in all the territories while many Northern Democrats resisted. The party split over the slavery issue in 1860 at its Presidential convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas as their candidate, and Southern Democrats adopted a pro-slavery platform and nominated John C. Breckinridge in an election campaign that would be won by Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party. After the Civil War, most white Southerners opposed Radical Reconstruction and the Republican Party's support of black civil and political rights.
The Democratic Party identified itself as the "white man's party" and demonized the Republican Party as being "Negro dominated," even though whites were in control. Determined to re-capture the South, Southern Democrats "redeemed" state after state -- sometimes peacefully, other times by fraud and violence. By 1877, when Reconstruction was officially over, the Democratic Party controlled every Southern state.

The South remained a one-party region until the Civil Rights movement began in the 1960s. Northern Democrats, most of whom had prejudicial attitudes towards blacks, offered no challenge to the discriminatory policies of the Southern Democrats.

One of the consequences of the Democratic victories in the South was that many Southern Congressmen and Senators were almost automatically re-elected every election. Due to the importance of seniority in the U.S. Congress, Southerners were able to control most of the committees in both houses of Congress and kill any civil rights legislation. Even though Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Democrat, and a relatively liberal president during the 1930s and '40s, he rarely challenged the powerfully entrenched Southern bloc. When the House passed a federal anti-lynching bill several times in the 1930s, Southern senators filibustered it to death.