filed under: She turned you into a Newt?!

This is a beautiful thing. link
This is why Newt may just win. Newt, Not Mitt.

Mitt Romney attacks Newt with his millions and Michelle Bachmann attacks Newt with her minions...

And Newt says, "I'll be happy to hold a free press conference every Tuesday and talk about ideas and have you meet with me personally and answer any questions you may have. Personally. Straight from the horse's mouth... or straight from the horse's ass... whatever you may think of me."

But you gotta worry about that. If Newt is able to wield the sword cheaply at Mitt's mighty fortress, he may bring it down and still push the media toward the big show... spinning a narrative that has him, not Mitt...(link) And he's already hacking away at the President. threatening to chase him around and challenge him to debates. (link) He's gonna be, or plan to be, it seems, like George Bush's Purse (link) or Traficant's hair... the albatross in the room... the 900 lbs gorrilla around the President's neck... a gadfly demanding free pressers... Because he, by Gid, has something to say...

And He's Not Mitt. Not Bush. Not McCain. Not Nixon.


Except that he is, in a way. In the sense that he is weirdly and strangely alien to the right and oddly attractive to the left... in a weird flirtatious way, he is offputting but not so bad you won't stand there and listen. You know. Just because it's fascinating to see it in motion, this mind. Like that chick at the party that thinks she's hot and because she thinks it... hell because she thinks at all... she is hot. She suddenly somehow becomes kinda hot, and well, you know the rest... Eventually she fucks you over. ( link...link ...link ...link ...link)

But still you go on believing (link)
But there's that moment that you kinda liked them, you know?

And there's an intellectual quality that I like behind the zaniness...(link link)

And he, Newt, will probably find a way before it's all said and done to run a modern day William McKinley front-porch strategy...(link)

And he's not Bush, but he is. And he's not Obama, but he is. And he's not Clinton, but he is. And he is not Woodrow Wilson, but he is... And he's not your enemy, but he is.

But we're in a difficult time. and we need some heavy thinking. Maybe a little heavy drinking, too. But not with our enemies... And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And all of that... So we flirt, but we know even as we flirt that he is not one of us.

I remember telling a friend of mine years ago that the evangelicals would turn on Bush when they discovered he was not one of them. And they did, finally, on immigration.

And I see that the left has turned on Obama but in the same way that they turned on Clinton over welfare going into the election... or that the right turned on Bush over prescription drugs going into the election... they don't like what they've seen but they're willing to think about it. But if another pretty girl entered the room? Another brainiac? Another freakshow? Another whatever floats your boat...

That might turn their heads.

What Obama promised and what he became? They hate him for that. And what Newt promised and what he became? They hate him for that. And Clinton and Bush and ...

But there's another reason. They also hate him because he is not one of us...

Because they are not us. That happens more and more with these guys. Hell, with Obama the burden of proof fell on him. to prove that he was one of us... Whatever that means that us, the people.  We always turn for those weirdly alien strangely familiar ones.

And it's the same with Mitt, too. With Mitt, it's because he's Mormom and he has that weird, Baptist coldness about him... He's Bill Henrickson without the wives. And that scares the shit out of some people. Out of Baptists.

But with Newt, it's because he has that quality that Obama has. Newt sees himself as the center of the universe. (link) Obama sees himself as the Transformational President... (link) and also as the center of the universe... (link)

Just think of these two in a debate. teleprompters off or on... (link link link link) and swinging away like boxers boxing over visions for the future...


whereas all mitt can offer is, well, a hardware store and a casino.