Opinion

Newt Gingrich's Poor Leadership

This morning on FOX News Sunday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said he won’t support Newt Gingrich for President:

I’m not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich’s having served under him for four years and experienced personally his leadership (…) I found it lacking often times.”

Coburn isn’t alone: As of November 25th, Gingrich hadn’t garnered endorsement from a single member of Congress. By comparison, Mitt Romney has gathered 44 such endorsements.

From the link:

“He’s a guy of 1,000 ideas, and the attention span of a one-year-old,” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told The Hill in April. “His discipline and his attention to any individual thing is not his strong suit.”

This cuts right to the heart of Gingrich’s candidacy: He has a track record of being an ineffectual leader. Let’s remember that Gingrich faced a leadership challenge from his own party which ultimately led to his resignation from the House of Representatives.

Part of the reason for that leadership challenge were Gingrich’s ethics violations. From The Washington Post, January 22, 1997:

The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House’s 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.

The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday’s vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.

“Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.). “If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment.”

Gingrich doesn’t lead by example. In fact, he doesn’t lead, period. This is another unsavory aspect of Gingrich’s record which bears greater scrutiny.

In my mind, it’s yet another reason to take a second, harder look at Rick Perry.

UPDATE: Doug Mataconis has posted another commentary on the Coburn comments, along with a video from Morning Joe detailing Gingrich’s record. Mr. Scarborough was, like Coburn, a member of the “Class of ’94”.

Support Conservative Daily News with a small donation via Paypal or credit card that will go towards supporting the news and commentary you've come to appreciate.

Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

Related Articles

One Comment

  1. I started emailing Newt right when he set up his election site and told him to stop running and save the money because we already know what kind of person he is from the last time he was in government, and even after he was voted out as speaker he never was completely out of politics. I told him that I didn’t trust him to be a conservative, and especially after he sided with Obama on the health care bill, and is not completely settled on man made global warming, which he should be totally against because of the truth of the matter. I emailed him several times and then after telling him and telling him that America did not trust him after what he did to the young guns who came in to Constitutionally change the government, he stopped that and taught them how things were done in Washington. I told him that was the reason why most of them turned into big government Republican’s like him, that he had done his job well in making a whole bunch of what would have been statesmen, he turned them into country club Republican’s like him. So I told him that if he was selected as the Republican candidate, that would mean four more years for Obama. After a few more emails like that they red flagged my URL and I can’t get on his site anymore. How about them apples?

    I can’t stand the man and I told him so. I told him what most people who know about him and that is he’s a con man, and he is conning us now into thinking he’s going to be tough on the Democrats and do all that he’s saying according to the Constitution. Newt knows full well that following the Constitution IS the only way to solve all our problems and getting government out of the way is how we need to recover from the affects of Socialism and Communism on our country. Newt may not so much so keep us from going over the edge but he won’t do that much in pulling us that far back from the edge either.

    Newt Gingrich is a detrament to the political process because he’s a reach across the aisle politician just like McCain, just not as leftist as McCain, but none the less he’s conning us into believeing that he will follow the Constitution. He won’t. He’ll do what he does according to the way business is done in Washington. It will be business as usual. That’s why the media isn’t going crazy over Newt even though he’s been outspoken against the media, they aren’t under orders by the Socialists to take him out because the Democrats know they can trust him to side with them on the health care bill, which Newt supported when the vote was about to happen, and it made Saun Hannidy mad when he did, and Saun had him on his show and asked him why did you go along with Obama on his health care bill, and Newt said, “I just did.” “There were a lot of things I saw in it that I liked and thought should be implemented.”

    Oh, that ‘s just great Newt. What other Socialist Democrat idea’s do you agree with that you’ll surprise us with once you are in office? We will freak out, I’m telling you right now. But it will be to late and Nancy Pelosi will be cracking another bottle of champaign open after the election like she did after what we did to them last November, which would have stunned anyone else but not the Socialists. They knew they were still in power since we weren’t able to take the Senate. Can we do that this time? We better!!

Back to top button