Replies to post #29387 on Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as usual, is disgusted. This time, he’s blasting the field of 2008 presidential candidates who, Gingrich believes, are “demeaning the presidency” by jumping through pointless hoops.

“We have shrunk our political process to this pathetic dance in which people spend an entire year raising money in order to offer non-answers, so they can memorize what their consultants and focus groups said would work,” Gingrich said.

In a speech to the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, the prospective Republican candidate said he will not consider running until he has created a wave of reform. […]

“This idea of demeaning the presidency by reducing it to being a game show contest … is wrong for America, and I would never participate in it,” he said.

In principle, I don’t entirely disagree. The process can be silly at times, and watching 10 candidates offer sound-bite answers — when they’re not raising their hands to yes/no questions — can start to appear a little demeaning.

But for Newt Gingrich to complain about politicians offering “non-answers,” crafted by “consultants and focus groups,” is rich. Good ol’ Newt practically invented this style of politicking; it’s too late for him to complain about it now.

Go back and take a look at this 2004 interview with GOP pollster Frank Luntz. He and Gingrich put the “Contract with America” together thanks to the clever work of “consultants and focus groups,” who determined it would be successful. The whole point was to find rhetoric — not policies, mind you, just words that sounded good — that would propel Republican candidates.

Indeed, as James Joyner noted today, Gingrich circulated a memo called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control” to incoming GOP freshman, shortly after the Republican take-over in 1994. Gingrich told his army:

Often we search hard for words to define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.

You can go take a look at the whole list, but the point of the memo isn’t subtle: Gingrich wanted his team to memorize the words GOP consultants and focus groups said would work.

Did it work? Like a charm. As Joyner explained, Gingrich’s style contributed to creating “the current atmosphere of extreme polarization that characterizes the American political landscape.”

And now Gingrich is complaining about it. The irony is rich.

[teapeebubbles]

Way back in early March, Paul Krugman noted an important angle to the prosecutor purge scandal: if the fired U.S. Attorneys were ousted for failing to “play ball” with the White House’s political agenda, some of the U.S. Attorneys who weren’t fired kept their jobs because they did “play ball.”

In particular, Krugman highlighted New Jersey.

For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.

The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.

Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.

Actually, it gets worse.

To be sure, this looked bad in March. The New Jersey GOP wanted to paint Menendez as corrupt. The local U.S. Attorney — a major Bush donor — launched an investigation based on flimsy accusations, shortly before the election. The campaign ended, Menendez won, and, wouldn’t you know it, all of a sudden the investigation effectively ended.

But this is even more interesting when one considers the fact that Christie was on a list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired — but managed to keep his job.

The WaPo reported today that Christie’s name appeared on a firing list compiled by Kyle Sampson in January 2006. His name was removed during the first week in November.

Blue Jersey summarized it this way:

In January 2006, Chris Christie was on a list of US Attorneys who were being looked at for replacement.

In September 2006, in the midst of a hard-fought US Senate campaign being dominated by accusations of corruption, Chris Christie authorizes a last minute subpoena that plays into Tom Kean Jr.’s political attacks against Bob Menendez.

In November 2006, after the election is over, Chris Christie is taken off the list and allowed to keep his job.

This looked suspicious before we knew that Christie was on the proverbial chopping block, but this makes the story even more interesting.

So, how did Christie get off the list?