Fracking The Party

The reason for Mitt Romney's general unpopularity has recently been exposed, and in the process, so have a great many operatives working for his rise to the presidency. The sad thing is, this has caused a rift in the political family that may be difficult to work past.

For the past few days, the Drudge Report has been plastered with damning stories of Newt Gingrich's alleged infidelity, but not the marital type. Instead, Drudge has linked to story after story of reports from other conservative darlings coming out to figuratively stone Gingrich into oblivion, thereby paving a smoother path for Romney to the nomination.

Ann Coulter -- a huge Romney gal -- has all but Borked Newt, most recently and most shrilly claiming that a Gingrich nomination will reelect Obama. When our beloved Ann uses the scare tactics usually reserved for the "enemy", it is quite unsettling when she turns them on her fan base. Drudge joining in on the antics hasn't helped, either. It's one of my first online stops of the day, and I've been feeling quite glum in the past few. Even Tom Delay piled on, despite the solidarity he enjoyed from many of us just a few short years ago.

"What could be happening?", many of us thought. Since it seemed so unseemly that our former champions could turn on us in such dramatic fashion, I started to wonder early today if I had misjudged Newt Gingrich; I started to doubt my backing him.

Fortunately Red County.com -- an organization to which I am more proud today than ever to be a contributor -- discovered something that both assuaged my  fears and confirmed my worst suspicions; the Republican Party had been fractured. To make matters worse, the very people and outlets I had counted on for truth had lied to me. Whether these are differences that will prove to be irreconcilable or not remain to be seen. I suppose it depends on the level of contrition of the offenders when the dust settles. Suffice it to say that for now, dear Ms. Coulter, I am very disappointed in you. (You're on my list, too, Matt!)

Red County posted an editorial with a a full response from the Gingrich team enclosed. It's an article from Legal Insurrection, written by former Reagan staffer William A. Jabobson, and it puts to rest the notion being spread all over the web by Romney-ites that Gingrich was less than an enthusiastic supporter of Reagan. This bolstered my spirits instantly, but my anger began to mount in unison with the good news when repeated trips back to Drudge failed to mention the breakthrough. That's when I was sure that Drudge was also in the tank for Romney.

Learning later today that Rush Limbaugh had discussed the strafing of Gingrich by his colleagues and railed against it helped to buoy my mood. Ronald Reagan's son Michael also came out to counter the lies being spread by the cabal against Gingrich, but the icing on the cake was seeing Drudge finally and -- I suspect -- grudgingly post this welcome news up on his aggregate.

Speaking to Newsmax, here's part of what Michael Reagan had to say today:

“I am deeply disturbed that supporters of Mitt Romney are claiming that Newt Gingrich is not a true Reaganite and are even claiming that Newt was a strong critic of my father.
Recently I endorsed Newt Gingrich for president because I believe that Newt is the only Republican candidate who has both consistently backed the conservative policies that my father championed and the only Republican that will continue to implement his vision.
It surprises me that Mitt Romney and his supporters would raise this issue — when Mitt by his own admission voted for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale who opposed my father, and later supported liberal Democrat Paul Tsongas for president."

“Say what you want about Newt Gingrich but when he was Speaker of the House he surrounded himself with Reagan conservatives and implemented a Ronald Reagan program of low taxes and restrained federal spending.
I would take Newt Gingrich’s record any day over Mitt Romney’s.”

I'm gratified to learn that my allegiance to Newt is not unfounded, but I am deeply disturbed at the depths to which people I have trusted have sunk so as to achieve a goal of promoting a candidate clearly not desired by the choir to whom they preach.

I think the time has come for all of the angry electorate to unite behind the man they would most like to see face Obama in the general election in November. I would also love to see the TEA Party come out in full endorsement of Gingrich. That will teach the haughty among us that they are preferred pundits but not our true representatives.

We can work on the bitter betrayal somewhere down the road.

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