Newt Gingrich taps into the power of resentment

Newt Gingrich was angry. Again.

The target this time: Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor, he thundered during a campaign appearance in Florida on Thursday, won't tell voters about his past because "he is counting on us not having YouTube. That's how much he thinks we are stupid."

"We aren't stupid. The message we should give Mitt Romney is we aren't that stupid and you aren't that clever," Gingrich added.

Despite being perhaps the consummate Washington insider - a former House speaker who grew rich consulting for health care companies, the government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac and others - Gingrich has cast himself in his presidential bid as a vessel of conservative resentment against the "elites" in Washington.

"I am running for President to represent you, not to represent the Washington lobbyists, not to represent Goldman Sachs, not to represent the people who have been ruining this country," Gingrich said Thursday.

To paraphrase a quote often attributed to former President Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich wants conservatives to know that he feels their pain.

That's a message that Romney - a technocratic, Massachusetts multi-millionaire whose patrician bearing screams "elite" - has a hard time sending. And that goes a long way toward explaining why Gingrich, despite his personal and professional shortcomings in the past, was able to beat Romney by double-digits in South Carolina.

Consider what happened in the Palmetto State last week. Just a few days before the primary, ABC News ran an interview with Gingrich's second ex-wife, who said that Gingrich, who has admitted extramarital affairs, sought an "open marriage" with her. That's the sort of thing you might expect would be a problem for the deeply socially-conservative South Carolina Republican electorate.

But in fact, the story may well have indirectly won Gingrich the state. Gingrich's thundering response to a question he deemed "despicable" at a debate last week garnered a standing ovation from the audience, and exit polls showed that the debates are what convinced many South Carolinians to back Gingrich. As it turned out, Gingrich's messy personal life was far less important to GOP voters than their anger at the elites in the media.

That "elite media" - along with the "elites in Washington and New York" and just plain old "elites" - took center stage in Gingrich's South Carolina victory speech. Those elites, he said, "have been trying for half century to force us to quit being American and become some kind of other system." Many Americans, he added, feel the elites "have no understanding, no care, no concern, no reliability and in fact do not represent them at all."

There is a certain irony to Gingrich's strategy, as the Washington Examiner's Philip Klein points out. The candidate often rails against President Obama for aping the radicalism of community organizer Saul Alinksy - but it is Gingrich who most directly apes the advice offered up by Alinksy in his book "Rules for Radicals," which recommends setting oneself up as the enemy of the establishment.

"The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy,'" wrote Alinsky, who added that his "notoriety and the hysterical instant reaction of the establishment not only validate my credentials of competency but also ensure automatic popular invitation."

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Gingrich is not only trafficking in resentment against elites.He's also used rhetoric that some see as designed to exploit race-based resentment toward low-income Americans. Gingrich repeatedly accuses President Obama of being a "food-stamp" president, and said "the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps." He has also called on poor children to work as janitors in their schools because they lack a strong work ethic.

The comment prompted Juan Williams to ask Gingrich at a January 16 debate if he recognizes that the comments are "insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans." 

Williams' line of questioning - which included the comment that Gingrich's "food stamp president" line "sounds as if you are seeking to belittle people" - garnered boos from the debate audience. Gingrich's response that his comments were appropriate - he said at one point "I know among the politically correct, you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable" - received a standing ovation.

The crucial test of how far Gingrich's politics of resentment will take him comes next Tuesday in Florida's January 31 primary. Gingrich has taken to casting Romney as an out-of-touch elite, someone who lives "in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and making $20 million for no work." He's even criticizing Romney for owning stock in Freddie Mac, an audacious move in light of Gingrich's past work for the government-backed mortgage giant.

If Gingrich wins Florida on the back of such rhetoric, it may well set Gingrich on the path to the nomination - a prospect that has the conservative media in panic mode. That's partially because the politics of resentment that fire up the conservative base don't play nearly as well in a general election. (Gingrich's favorable rating, according to the Washington Post, is just 29 percent, while his unfavorable rating is 51 percent - though it's worth nothing that Romney's isn't much better.) The fear is that if Gingrich relies on the same rhetoric against the president that he has in the primary, he could alienate many Americans and ultimately lose big - dragging down Republican Senate and House candidates in the process.  

Rand Paul TSA video: Was he really "irate"?

[xxoxxoxx9]

Newt's personal life says a lot about the man and his abilities to be stable and loyal.
I have made a humorous video that I believe shows how his wives must have felt about his loyalties. You may see it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQSsMRe6BJE
Hope you enjoy!

[rjdnort]

Montopoli is inhaling the Kool-Aid!
CBS should try to earn back the credibility its News division had under its founder Bill Paley (eg-Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid,et al...). A good start would be to trade this moron (Montopoli)to the NY Times for a small container of Starbucks!

[noloyalisti]

I think we should all get behind Gingrinch if for no reason that it is making the Top 1% Republicon Corporation hysterical. The public front group for the Wall Street Banksters and other right wing corporate criminals.

Vote for Newt, vote for Newt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JRomney01]

You teabaggers and the 99% are loosers. My cousin Mitt got all the wall street bankers and the party establishment behind him. Nothing can stop us. See at the white house.

[kevin_hunt]

In 1981, Gingrich introduced a bill to the House floor that sought "to provide for the therapeutic use of marihuana in situations involving life-threatening or sense-threatening illnesses and to provide adequate supplies of marihuana for such use." September 16, 1981, H.R.4498, 97th Congress, 2D Session

[noloyalisti]

Like I said, let's all get behind Newt. The Republicon established is scared to death by the prospect of him being the nominee and that is plenty good for me.

[Ceres6]

It would be great for the country to have a candidate that will confront the powerful people and organizations that are destroying the middle class, in short, ruining the country. Mr. Gingrich is not that candidate. In fact Mr. Gingrich made millions of dollars working for the benefit of healthcare providers, the same companies that today are sucking our blood. Three of the ten CEOs with the greatest income in the nation are making more than one million dollars per week. I will not be surprised if those 3 big shots are some of Mr. Gingrich's best friends.

[mick7744]

Like his evil twin sister, Sarah (although she's obviously been to weightwatchers and had a boob job) Neut Gingrich defines his opponants by who they "hate" (America...The Constitution...God, etc)

The only potential positive aspect of a Neut presidency is the possibility of of a First Family with a First Harem...hopefully not all skanks like Callista.

With Sarah...all we'd get is a First Eunich...a couple of First *****...a First DS Stageprop...and a First Hooligan.

After that...it's all straight downhill...

[newser1013]

"He's also used rhetoric that some see as designed to exploit race-based resentment toward low-income Americans." COME ON. I JUST POSTED A NICE COMPLIMENT TO YOUR ORGANIZATION FOR MR. SHEIFFERS WILLINGNESS TO TELL IT LIKE IT IS AND HERE YOU GO AND PLAY THE SAME OLD GAME I HAVE SEEN JOURNALISTS PLAY ALL YEAR. THE ONLY AMERICANS THAT WOULD NOT SEE THAT RHETORIC AS DESIGNED TO EXPLOIT RACE BASED RESENTMENT ARE EITHER DEAF OR IN A DEEP DEEP DENIAL BROUGHT ON BY STAGGERING IGNORANCE.

[allhaileris]

YouTube for Newt...explain this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvzT1S8p-ZM

[smittyc]

I think the article on Gov Brewer and Obama was the funniest I have read in a while.

[arthanyel]

The only thing that Gingrich's rise proves is that the Republican party is disintegrating into it's three separate power groups - evangelicals, right wing extremists, and the Wall Street powerbrokers. In the old days the Wall Street group was able to hoodwink the other two groups into supporting their candidates, but now the poster child of the Wall Street crowd, Mitt ROmney, is violently opposed by the other two groups.

Fortunately for us this means Obama is likely to be re-elected which, even with his long list of faults, wil be better for the average citizen than letting any Republican into the White House.

And maybe, just maybe, this all sets the stage for the real majority of American (who lean conservative on financial and defense issues and liberal on social issues) to finally get a third pary that actually represents what we REALLY want.