On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer decided to attack the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, instead of waiting for reinforcements. He was killed, along with 265 troops in about an hour. The next day, when General Terry arrived with reinforcements, the Indians took one look and decided to leave. Custer had accomplished nothing. It was a stark reminder that suicidal attacks seldom win wars, but they almost always destroy the attackers.
The Republican campaign has disintegrated into a poorly written soap opera. In an act of absolute desperation, Newt Gingrich is now comparing Romney, unfavorably, with just about every despicable person on earth. He would have us believe that Romney is an anti-religion, left-wing, pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-tax liberal. Now Romney is not my candidate of choice, but this is ridiculous. Keep in mind that just four years ago, Romney was the conservative alternative to McCain. He has flip-flopped more than his share, but he is a far cry from a hard core liberal.
The real problem is that Romney had a ton of money available to assault Gingrich, and he had even more ammunition, most of which is at least somewhat true. Gingrich has now gone over the edge blaming all his problems on the “Republican establishment.” That is nonsense. The vast majority of Gingrich’s problems were self-inflicted. There is no conspiracy against Gingrich; there just are a lot of Republicans who are very concerned with regard to his qualifications to be President. Frankly, his performance lately lends credibility to their concerns.
Gingrich is acting like a spoiled child. I understand why he is angry. He has been running for President, and failing, since the mid 90’s, Gingrich believes he was gifted by God to be President of the United States, and he is angry that his destiny has been thwarted by mere mortals. The man with a life-long, well-earned reputation for skewering opponents also has the thinnest skin in politics. The problem is that we simply cannot have a President who is so self-centered and who has such lack of control over his emotions.
In my opinion the Tea Party is going to take a big hit on this. Some of the Tea Party organizations jumped on the Gingrich bandwagon only to watch him head for the rocks at full speed. This failed to save Gingrich, but it managed to alienate Romney. Now we are at serious risk of nominating a candidate that the Tea Party openly tried to torpedo. That is hardly the way to win friends and influence people.
If the polls are right, Gingrich is going to get walloped in Florida today. This reminds me of Custer’s last stand. Custer went down in history as a hero, but in reality he just killed everyone around him.
TDM