Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Howard Kurtz on Newt's comeback

Kurtz opens with:
Newt Gingrich summoned his remaining staff to the conference room of his K Street office in June, shortly after much of his team had defected, and delivered an old-fashioned pep talk.

“This is a football season,” he said. “You don’t just kick off the ball and win. Someone’s going to come hit you. We got hit. Get up.”

Gingrich told the team that his challenge over the summer was survival, followed by the chance for a breakout in the fall. And as the Republican presidential contenders prepare for a CNN debate Tuesday night in Las Vegas, he has, at the very least, cleared the first goal.
Kurtz on the rest of the field's inexperience in foreign policy:
Unlike the governors and ex-governors seeking the nomination, Gingrich has been thinking seriously about national issues for a quarter-century. Unlike Cain, who in recent interviews offered no plan on Afghanistan, was unfamiliar with the Palestinian “right of return” issue, and had trouble pronouncing Uzbekistan, Gingrich has been dealing with foreign policy since the Reagan administration.
Kurtz makes two references to money coming into the campaign recently at a "greatly increased" pace.

Kurtz quotes Rich Galen as saying that Newt's past will drag him down if -- and, in my opinion, when -- he gets into the top 2. Galen acts as if no one is aware of Newt's entire life, and only when he raises up in the polls will people know about it.

That, of course, is nonsense. Newt is as scrutinized as any politician of the last 30 years, and the past is already built into Newt's numbers. But Galen -- for whatever reason -- is the go-to-guy in many articles for a negative Newt quote. And he doesn't fail this time.

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