In an appearance on The Factor with Bill O’Reilly, conservative columnist and Fox News personality Charles Krauthammer weighed in on Newt Gingrich’s front-runner status and his perceived problems with the “Republican Establishment.” Krauthammer opens by attempting to get O’Reilly to define what makes one “establishment” and quips that O’Reilly’s steadfast position that he’s an “independent” is the reason he wasn’t invited to the “Monthly meetings that we hold at the Masonic Temple under the full moon at midnight. You got to bring a live lamb. Karl Rove brings the incense. I’m sure you’d enjoy it – the chanting and the pledge of allegiance to the trilateral commission.”
In the end, here’s his two-point analysis…
1.) He’s too mercurial and unpredictable – he’s a victim of his own “creative intelligence.” He may just wake up one day with a great idea and surprise everyone that said idea is anything but conservative.
2.) Some think he’s un-electable. Not the personal stuff, but Newt’s baggage – Freddie Mac and other kinds of “commercial problems” – may be overlooked by conservatives in primaries, but independents on whom the election will hing will not be “as accommodating.”
Fair assessment?
Number one there scares the hell out of me. Frankly, it’s the reason I can’t fully get behind Newt until my only other option is Barack Obama. When it’s a “liberal I fear versus liberal I know” decision, the choice won’t seem as ominous. Until then…
Number two is Newt Gingrich in a nutshell. His “personal stuff” is a large part of why he’s going to struggle – primarily – in places like the Bible Belt. The other baggage is why his campaign could potentially implode once he’s forced to defend the record that conservatives love and all the other nonsense equally hated by all center and right.
Fair? Probably.
Troubling? Absolutely.
[...] Charles Krauthammer says Newt Gingrich has an “establishment republican” problem. Anyone wanna bet whether he solved that problem Thursday [...]