Hullabaloo

Thursday, January 26, 2012

 
Hey Newtie -- someone would like to have a word with you

by digby

When I was young, Bob Dole was known as the Prince of Darkness. Indeed, he was as mean as they came. By today's GOP standards, he's kindly old Kris Kringle.
Still, he's always had a very wicked sense of humor and he showed it today:

I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway...

Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with President Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics like shutting down the government helped to topple Gingrich in 1998.

In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.

That made me laugh out loud.


*The bucket was an obscure symbol of outmoded congressional perks,referring to some patronage job to deliver ice well into the 90s. It was a typical cutsie Newtie gimmick and by the time Dole was running for President in 1996 it was already obscure and weird. Just like Newtie.

But then Newtie had been asking for some time if he "had to get into this thing" and nobody was saying yes. So I'd imagine he was more than a little miffed at old Bob for being chosen.


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digby 1/26/2012 05:29:00 PM |