“What I don’t get is why anybody is surprised by anything this guy does,” Rep. Peter King was saying yesterday afternoon, on his way to a Fordham-St. Joseph’s basketball game. “All Newt ever cared about was Newt. He’s the single most narcissistic guy I’ve ever met in politics — and boy is that ever saying something.”Gingrich is more than willing to damage what chances the Republican party has to win in November all because he thinks he is entitled to win the nomination over Romney and thinks that Romney has done him wrong. Newt can't manage to get ahead of even Ron Paul in the first two races, and yet thinks he's entitled to being a front-runner. His chances keep slipping further and further away, but that's not going to stop Gingrich from continuing his attacks on Romney's business experience while at Bain Capital.
Pete King, a Republican out of the 3rd Congressional district, out of Nassau and Suffolk counties, and somebody who was right there when Gingrich was Speaker of the House, was just getting started.
“(Gingrich) puts himself in a different universe from everybody else,” King said. “He actually does compare himself to de Gaulle and Churchill, and Reagan. And Margaret Thatcher. I believe the guy is suffering from some messiah complex, one where he believes it’s his destiny to save America and lead America.
“I know the guy a long time, and I can tell you that he absolutely doesn’t care if bringing Romney down destroys his own party. And remember something about these attacks: They aren’t coming from the left, whatever liberal wing there is in our party. They’re coming from a right-wing conservative like Gingrich. It would be like Democrats attacking Obama on health care.
“But Romney’s campaign hits Newt in Iowa, and now he’s willing to pull the whole house down on top of Romney and everybody else to get back at him. So at least one thing about the guy never changes: He can’t take it. When he was Speaker, he’d say anything he wanted about Democrats, call them corrupt and evil. Then one of them would come back at him, and he’d cry.”
Gingrich is a smug phony. So are those just discovering his true character, what a political scrub he is and always has been, even as he wants you to think he is smarter than everybody else in the room. Rick Perry joins Gingrich in these attacks on Romney now, talking about “vulture capitalism.” But Perry is like some third goon in on a hockey fight. He didn’t have the guts or the brains to go after Romney this way until Gingrich did.
Indeed, Gingrich is doing all he can to turn business experience (something that would ordinarily be considered a positive by Republicans who key in on such experience over political experience or ties) into a negative and making the Democrats' arguments for him.
We'll know more about Gingrich's already less-than-admirable character and judgment after he fails once again in South Carolina's primary. If he does poorly once again, will he pack it in and quit the race, or will he continue to stick around so as to be a thorn in Romney's side? I'm betting on the latter - since Gingrich's oversized ego will not allow him to do anything other than that. He can't admit to himself that he's got no chance to be president and the most he can do is hurt the ambitions of a fellow Republican.
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