Tag: 2012 Presidential Election

It is far too soon to make sweeping pronouncements of any sort, but one of the most persistent issues of next year’s Presidential Election may well be a grand debate on the size of government.  Republicans have considered this their meat-and-potatoes issue since 1980, but in many ways, it is far less applicable today.  Even so, now that a substantial federal deficit exists, Republican Presidential candidates will be sure to keep bringing up that fact in debates, television ads, flyers, e-mail blasts, Tweets, and solicitations for contributions.  If only they knew that the era of Big Government has long been over.  Their paranoia about the evils of contagious socialism is a mere specter now.  But so far as myths go, this is one of the more persistent, and has gone unchallenged for so many years that it might as well be gospel in the minds of many believers.  

Now that Newt Gingrich has formally tossed his hat into the 2012 ring, the GOP will have to determine for itself how willing it is to forgive a candidate with serious flaws. It remains to be seen whether the former House Speaker’s role as resident bomb thrower and agitator will endear him to more than a specific audience. If he is to be taken seriously, Gingrich will need to radically reinvent himself. One cannot easily make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear. Any effort to cozy up to Evangelical voters is bound to register only as cynical posturing, à la John McCain in 2008. Gingrich is neither a contrite, nor humble person by nature, a quality true to far too many who seek expanded powers. It could be argued that any Presidential campaign is a vain endeavor, but Gingrich has never been the sort of person to disguise his ambitions or the ways in which he has consolidated influence.