Newt's not the guy

that The "insider" complaint about Gingrich as the nominee for the Republican Party is his undoing.  Since his ignominious removal as Speaker of the House in 1999, Gingrich has enriched himself as a consultant for various corporations and GSEs including Freddie Mac.  His defense of his activities is that he never lobbied any government agency on behalf of his clients.  This is, at best, a highly dubious claim.  Can anyone with a straight face suggest that one with Gingrich's background and history would be hired for any other purpose than to influence some government entity on behalf of his client?  And influence peddling is the operative definition of lobbying, no matter any of the so-called nuanced explanations being floated in Gingrich's defense.   Since the Tea Party, big government, and anti Obama sentiment prevalent today are all predicated on distrust and disgust with Washington and cronyism, it's hard to see how Gingrich can avoid this backlash.  Romney will likely win the nomination as the last guy standing and because he has the least amount of big government/Washington taint.  This outcome is probably for the best for conservatives and Republicans since of the two leading  candidates Romney is the steadier, more rational and has more appeal among swing voters.  Buckley's dictum of choosing the most conservative candidate who can be elected, is just about right in this case.

The occupiers, Harvard freshmen, and Tea Party

The Occupy Wall Street movement is winding down largely because adults in the cities where they have been taking place have had enough.  Initially, at least, Obama and the democrats were supportive of (and may even have helped organize) the movement until it proved to be an unfocused, inchoate amalgam of malcontents, homeless, and grab bag of young throw backs to the '60's hippies.   Once it became clear the movement had degenerated all but the union support was nowhere to be seen.  There are, however,  some who still buy into the movement, despite its demise, and not surprisingly they emanate from an elite school in the northeast, Harvard.  In this article the immature mind of college freshmen (women) is on full display.  In support of the occupy movement freshmen students in an introductory Econ 101 class at Harvard, taught by the well known and highly regarded economist Nicholas G. Mankiw, decided to stage a "walk out" in protest against the "conservative" bias of the professor and also in support of the occupiers and their various causes and demands. This decision was  no doubt based on the freshmen's vast life experiences and store of knowledge.   Any rational administration would immediately refund these students' fees, tell them Harvard's not for them and offer their positions in the freshman class to someone who wants to earn a degree from the school based upon the curriculum offered in its course catalogue.  The students who walked out of Mr. Mankiw's course must have slipped through the admission process somehow since they failed to read and/or understand the Harvard syllabus prior to matriculation.  To state the obvious: The time for these students to object to a professor or course is not after having been accepted by the school and in turn having themselves accepted the offer to join the student body.  The administration should advise them that since they are not smart enough to do their homework on the kind of education Harvard offers, they are simply not Harvard material, and add that they might be happier out there with the occupiers camped out in some park rather than disrupting classes and those who want to learn.


On related front, the idea that the "occupy" movement is a construct of the democrat party and its main supporters (Moveon.org, unions, etc) stems from the success of the Tea Party movement.  Because the democrats were insanely jealous of the impact of the Tea Party on the 2010 mid-term elections and its effectiveness in turning public opinion agains Obamacare and the rest of the liberal agenda, they had to have some kind of galvanizing movement of their own.  Voila, occupy Wall Street.  While the Tea Party rightly focused on the corruption of the political process by both political parties (mostly democrats), its demands centered on reforming Washington and big government as the solution.  On the other hand, the occupy movement focusses solely on the evils of capitalism and it surrogate, Wall Street bankers.  One can make a pretty good case that what we are witnessing here is a shootout between Socialism and Capitalism as the way forward for our country.  Since there is ample evidence that socialism simply does not work, and lots of evidence that free markets and capitalism have provided all the wealth and material progress mankind has made over many centuries, there is little doubt which of these two isms should win this argument.  The 2012 election will determine the way forward.