...are you talkin' to me?

i got an email from newt gingrich!

i mean, i think i got an email from newt gingrich. it came to my email address, after all.

come to think of it, though, it started out "dear conservative..." ...and, uh, the thing is, i'm not exactly a conservative. what i am, in fact, is a liberal.

so, if you think about the political spectrum in terms of "liberal" on the left and "conservative" on the right, picture me standing in left field in a beautiful, all-american baseball stadium, and gingrich standing in the parking lot on the far right side of a dog-fighting ring in georgia.

i hope that helps.

back to the email...what else is newter saying?

"As I write this, Barack Obama and the Democrats are raising thousands of dollars per hour, waiting for a Republican nominee to emerge. He's a radical, secular socialist who wants to reinvent America in the image of the faded, decrepit Republics of Western Europe."

hang on. i may be biased here, but i'm also well to the left of barack obama. which is how i know he's neither a radical (much to my chagrin), nor a socialist. as for the "...faded, decrepit republics of western europe," wouldn't the failed communist regimes of eastern europe be a more apt comparison? i mean, if obama really is as far left as gingrich would like us to believe (which he totally isn't), then surely barack must be a red-loving, failed communist-statist.

why has newt-the-historian-and-reagan-conservative failed to make this connection? could it be because he's actually a revisionist historian and not remotely a reagan conservative? as if being a reagan conservative were actually something to embrace, rather than run from, screaming.

and before we leave the subject...why does newt hate europe so much? aren't some of those countries among america's allies? i'm no cartographer, but i'm pretty sure they are. is it really a good idea to insult them like this?

you know, i'm starting to think newt and his emailing minions made a mistake. several of them, in fact.

"I believe that a second term for Barack Obama will be a disaster for this country and I am committed to beating him."

i have no doubt that newt actually believes this. but most sentient creatures and several varieties of mushrooms believe the exact opposite. especially if newt is as committed to this endeavor as he was his first two wives.*

(* was that a cheap shot? nah. especially since newt is selling himself as a holier-than-thou roman catholic convert, blithering on about the sanctity of hetero marriage. historical note: newt raised a ruckus over bill clinton's blowjobs at a time when newt himself was happily hypocritizing in an affair of his very own. no, when you look at it that way, it's not a cheap shot. at all.)

thinking back to newt's glory days in the house, i recall him leading his party to remarkable lows in civility and willingness to govern via compromise. in fact, i see a direct line from the newt-led 104th congress to today's hilariously hostile, nonfunctional government, as well as the chasm of contempt between the right and left. these are not fond memories.

maybe i'll respond to this email and let newt know i'm disinclined to send him money or volunteer for his campaign. unless he'd be willing to negotiate (gasp!) some sort of compromise.

for example, in exchange for a few minutes of my valuable volunteer time, he could put me in charge of his email blasts. without irony, i would do nothing more (or less) than quote the candidate (in context!), and solicit support on that basis. all the way to the convention.

this would be consistent with newt's stated desire to run a "positive campaign, based on the issues."

it's a high-minded goal, one befitting a serious candidate with serious ideas, like putting poor children to work as janitors, or drug-testing people applying for unemployment, or building a permanent colony on the moon.

this way, voters would know exactly what they were getting with a newton leroy gingrich candidacy.

it's a straightforward, strait-laced, straight-talking strategy, with newt providing the content.

what could possibly go wrong?