Not one hour after my last blog post, National Review (see establishment conservative publications) put out an article praising Newt for his great intelect.
One major source of Newt’s problems is that he is almost always the smartest guy in the room. Compounding this problem is an ability and compulsion to defend any position he takes. For a politician this can be an enormous problem because it creates a climate where he can’t take unwelcome advice from his staff
Although one could argue that the article's author's definition of intelligence might better define words like “bull headed” or “dismissive”, I find the following much more interesting
Gingrich is very wedded to the idea that he should be on the majority side of every major public policy issue. That’s why he believes in framing policy questions so they become “70-30 issues” (or sometimes even “80-20″ issues) — i.e. issues where he’s on the side of 70 percent of Americans against the 30 percent “elite.”
This is the problem with Gingrich and basically all of the Republican contenders. They do not stand on principle. Instead the try and gauge what an electable politician looks like and mold themselves to fit that image. The problem is that their convictions then only go as deep as their perception of public opinion.
The only exceptions seem to be Herman Cain, who is not pushing principles so much as a leadership process, and Ron Paul. Even though Ron Paul takes some crazy stances, such as his stance on immigration, and his undying belief that Muslim countries would be all sun shine and roses if only we pulled out of their affairs, it is still refreshing to hear a candidate take stances on nothing more than what he believes to be right.
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