As a practicing pundit, I must point out how saddened I was by the departures of Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee from contention for the Republican nomination for the presidency. Either one was a reliable source of bizarre statements suitable for commentary.
Fortunately, Newt Gingrich has entered the race. He’s a former U.S. representative from Georgia. He was speaker of the House for a few years. He must have an abundance of family values, since he’s on his third marriage; he justified his philandering by pointing out that he was “driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”
In other words, his love of country drove him into bed with other women. Some public figure somewhere may have offered a lamer excuse, but if so, I’ve missed it.
It’s hard to know just where Gingrich stands on Libya — he was for a no-fly zone before he was against it. Or just what he thinks of the Republican plan to gut Medicare. He was for it, then against it, then somewhat for it — a well-oiled weather vane in a whirlwind is a marvel of consistency compared to Gingrich.
But he enjoys a reputation as an intellectual. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Emory University and a master’s and Ph.D. in Western European history from Tulane. He taught history for several years at West Georgia College. I’ve read a few of the novels of speculative Civil War history that list his name as one of the authors.
As such things go, they’re not bad. But with that said, what was he thinking last week when he said that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 election?
Abraham Lincoln was elected that year. He repeatedly said he had neither the power nor the inclination to interfere with slavery where it was legal. Even so, Southern states began leaving the union to protect their “peculiar institution” from the “Black Republicans” in Washington.
Lincoln summoned an army to hold the union together, and thus the Civil War. That’s a big consequence, sure enough.
However, Lincoln’s main opponent, Illinois Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, was also reviled in Dixie. Douglas may have differed with Lincoln on many issues, but he was a staunch supporter of the union. It’s impossible to imagine that Douglas, had he been elected and confronted with secession, would have said “Go in peace.” He’d have responded with force, pretty much as Lincoln did.
So if secession and war would have happened had either leading candidate been elected, how consequential was the election?
You can make the argument that the 1860 election wasn’t that consequential; secession and war loomed, and at most, the shooting might have been postponed until the 1864 election.
And haven’t there been some consequential elections since 1860? Say, in 1896, pitting corporate William McKinley against the populist William J. Bryan and keeping America on a plutocratic path? Or FDR’s victory in 1932 that gave us Social Security and bank insurance? Or Richard Nixon in 1968 that established environmental protection? Ronald Reagan in 1980?
I wanted to think that 2008 election would be consequential, but we’ve still got soldiers in Iraq, a Wall Street that thrives while Main Streets suffer, and we don’t have single-payer health coverage. And I don’t see 2012 changing any of that, no matter who’s elected, so how consequential could it be?
Oh, well. Gingrich can blather, which is his right. What isn’t right is that some people appear to think he knows what he’s talking about.
Freelance columnist Ed Quillen (ekquillen@ ) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
