All I want for Christmas is Newt

As an individual with fairly strong democratic tendencies, I have been keeping a close watch on the Republican nomination race this fall.

With a parade of unqualified contenders rising and falling, it appears the Republican primary voters have stumbled upon the brightest star of the race so far, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

I couldn’t be happier.

Former Speaker Gingrich has a wonderfully colorful past and has said some unbelievable things that make even some Republicans squeamish.

First example, in discussing his reasons for wanting to roll back child labor laws just a few weeks ago, Gingrich said that “really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works, so they have no habit of showing up on Monday ... they have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it is illegal.”

The idea of rolling back child labor  as laws should make one pause on its own merits, but explaining it this way should make you question the sanity of the Republican establishment. Not only does the former speaker believe children as young as nine should be working, he justifies his stance by making a broad generalization that demonizes an entire demographic simply for their economic standing.

If I can take a brief journey into the former speaker’s mind, the logic behind his statement is as follows: Poor people are poor because they don’t work — presumably because they are too lazy to find a job — and because they don’t work, their children won’t know how to work, either. Oh, and I forgot, apparently the only commerce poor people understand is illegal commerce.

I’d be curious to find out how many “poor people” Gingrich actually knows. But alas, unfounded generalizations tinged with an undertone of prejudice are not the only services Gingrich offers. He also dabbles in arrogance.

After a short two weeks at the top of a Republican primary that has seen six different front runners, this statement is no hyperbole on my part: Newt decided it was time to announce himself the winner and unassailable nominee.

Confidence is a good thing in measured doses. This statement is not what I’d call measured in any sense of the word.

For one final treasure from the kind and generous Newt, I turn again to his own words. In the 1970s, Gingrich reportedly described the first of his two ex-wives and said, “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.”

There’s absolutely nothing I can add to that.

So, as a Democrat and a strong supporter of President Obama, I can honestly say that all I want for Christmas is for Newt Gingrich to be the Republican nominee.

It’s hard for me to come up with a better example of the problems found in the public face of the modern day Republican Party. Nasty Newt is pompous, out-of-touch and of questionable moral fabric — the shining candidate for a party that, if this primary is at all representative, has unquestionably lost its collective mind.  


­— jontodd@indiana.edu