Poor Newt – (Almost) Nobody Likes Him

These days the Republican contest for the presidential nomination seems more like high school than a political happening. One after one, the famous, infamous and established have lined up to bash Newt Gingrich to make good and well sure that he is not their candidate in the fall.

First, we hear that 3-time presidential hopeful Bob Dole has nothing good to say about him, this despite the fact that he has been absolutely silent about The Newt.

Up to now that is.

Bob Dole on Newt, courtesy of CBS:

“I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich, but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.”

Then there is Tom DeLay. Now Tom DeLay is a one-man band himself so he must know whereof he speaks when he compared The Newt to the Big Dog, Bill Clinton in a recent radio telephone interview.

From USA Today:

“He'll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. When he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.”

But not all of his former colleagues are dismissing The Newt wanting to just go away. One former colleague, Duke Cunningham, R-The Big House, has Newt’s back:

“Jailed ex-Congressman Duke Cunningham wants Newt Gingrich to know he's got the Republican presidential candidate's back.”

“Cunningham apparently has been watching the Republican presidential primary debates while spending 100 months in a Tucson, Ariz. federal prison. Cunningham, a Republican who represented northern San Diego, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion in 2005 in one of the biggest federal bribery scandals in recent memory.”

“Cunningham tells Gingrich in an electronic message he says he sent to the candidate last month that his fellow prisoners, and their families, support Gingrich.”

With friends like that, how can The Newt ever fail to capture the nomination?

Keeping my fingers crossed, Newt.

So all is not lost. The Newt has some support out there after all. Unfortunately none of them, on the inside anyway, can vote. But that’s OK, they have family members who listen to the political views of their incarcerated relatives all the time.