Pawlenty: nominating Newt equals handing the election to Obama

by: Bill Prendergast

Thu Jan 26, 2012 at 14:00:00 PM CST

And just yesterday, he got serious:

Newt Gingrich Vows to Establish Colony on Moon
-Associated Press
January 26, 2012 RSS Feed Print

And Romney offered to pay for the trip, if Gingrich really will go. (Just kidding.) But for years, Michele Bachmann and the tea party have been telling us the US is flat-broke. What is their reality? We got the money for this, or no? Do Republicans really need another place to export American manufacturing jobs?

In any case, former governor and prez candidate Tim Pawlenty wants Newt gone, too. Look:

'Stop-Newt' Republicans Confront New Base
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Jan 25, 2012 11:00 PM

..."The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handing the election over to Obama," former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told reporters on a Jan. 23 conference call. "I think that's shared by a lot of folks in the Republican Party."

Pawlenty's comments echoed those being uttered publicly and behind the scenes by elected Republicans, party activists, fundraisers and pundits, who represent a portion of the party establishment -- a "stop-Newt" caucus -- populated largely by people who have known the former U.S. House speaker for decades.

You see...it's the people in the party who know Gingrich best and up close, who are trying to put him under the bus.
(CONTINUED)

I don't think this has ever happened before, in politics. Gingrich has burned, betrayed, and broken his word to so many Republican leaders over the course of his career--that a sort of "grass roots sentiment" has sprung up among the Republican elite! The guys we hate, hate him, even more than they hate us!

You gotta understand that for Pawlenty to go public with that kind of denunciation of Gingrich--is a big deal for a career politician who profited from the political trend that Gingrich represented in the 1990s.

Pawlenty is not known for taking stands against conservative Republicans. But he is known for one thing: getting elected. Pawlenty's not popular, but he's an opportunist--right up until the end he knew which way to jump at election time.

And he's betting that it's going to be Romney (and that Romney will award something to Pawlenty if he triumphs.) In the same way, Pawlenty was loyal to McCain, even when McCain's nomination prospects were dim (Pawlenty was hoping for the vice presidential slot; but we all know who got that.)

But Newt is looking good in some parts of Florida...

State polls in Florida haven't given much hard data about North Florida's rural areas, but a CNN/Time/ORC poll released Wednesday gave Gingrich a slight edge in north and central Florida while Romney was the favorite from Tampa Bay and south.

Watching the Republican establishment hunt Newt Gingrich is like what Oscar Wilde description of fox-hunting:

"The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable."

LINK: Newt on the moon!
http://www.usnews.com/news/art...

LINK: Republican establishment to try to stop Newt:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

LINK: Romney's elitist rep in north and central Florida:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/26/...