Gingrich and the Slime Factor

Newt Gingrich is one of the toughest, dirtiest SOBs in American Politics! If you get in a fight with him it’ll be a helluva brawl.
by Charlie Leck

Almost 20 years ago Newt Gingrich was a significant leader of the Republican Party and he, along with Frank Luntz, a wordsmith, put together an attack plan for party members to use against opponents (Democrats). The plan outlined a number of hot-button words that should be used against opponents.

Traitors

Radical

Selfish

Shallow

Bizarre

Corrupt

Back then Gingrich explained that these words “can create a clear and easily understood contrast… Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.”

Wow! Talk about a lack of substance!

Dana Milbank, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, reminds his readers, in a very well written piece, of the Gingrich methodology. Milbank dug up the old memo that Newt had circulated among Republicans running for office.

Now that Gingrich has become the sudden leader in the race for the Republican endorsement in the presidential primaries, Newt’s techniques are coming back to bite him. I urge you to read the Milbank column: Newt’s Nastiness Comes Back to Haunt Him.

This is the kind of politics that Americans are sick and tired of and the continued use of these techniques in the coming campaign could cause a very serious backlash against those who apply such strategies (whether Republican or Democrat).

Newt Gingrich’s dirty little history in American politics is not going to serve him well in this race. There’s no doubt that Gingrich is bright, intellectual and clever. His cleverness often borders on nastiness and dirtiness. More and more people are going to be dragging up reminders of Newt’s past as Milbank does in this column.

Gingrich as President of the United States? I just can’t imagine it! Intellectually, he’s the direct opposite of Bachmann and Palin and Perry and Cain; yet there’s a certain slime factor that surrounds Gingrich that doesn’t seem to fit with being President. (Before I used it, I looked for some synonyms for the word slime and I came up with: glop, goo, gook, gunk, mire, mucus, scum, sludge, smut, crud, dregs, excrement, garbage, putridity, rottenness, sleaze, feculence, filth and foulness. Use any one of them, as you wish, for a substitute noun.)

Am I being too tough? Hey! What I’m doing here is showing you just how the Gingrich technique works.

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