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DES MOINES, Iowa -- Before activists here, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) gave a glimpse of what they might focus on if they launch likely presidential runs -- and they revealed different approaches and priorities.
Barbour focused largely on the economy.
"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing," Barbour joked, adding, "and the main thing is economic growth."
Barbour was generally well received, and earlier in the week, he showed no qualms in expressing his emotion on the issue of abortion. But with Iowa being a caucus state dominated by social conservatives, some attendees in the hallways and in the audience questioned that focus.
Another speaker, Emmett McGroarty, on a panel on family values, wrapped his speech with what appeared to be a mild shot at Barbour. He said social-conservative values are part of "the main thing, and that's the main thing I'm focused on today."
That drew a mix of laughs and applause.
As he's said before, Barbour stressed that the presidential election needs to be about policy, "because these are the wrong policies. ... These policies make it harder to create jobs."
Barbour showed a mix of humor and seriousness, as he also criticized President Obama for the health-care overhaul law and the administration's energy policy. He described the energy policy not as an "energy" one, but "an environmental policy." He said the policy is to "drive up the cost of energy, so people wont use it."
"We need more oil; we need more gas; we need more coal; we need more nuclear; we need more American energy," Barbour said, adding that the U.S. should also generate energy from wood and waste. "We need all of the above," he added.
Gingrich also hit Obama on energy and health care, but stressed values first as well as foreign policy. Notably, even though he mentioned values as a top priority, he did not speak at length about it. He instead focused much of his speech on other topics, including the president's handling of the situation in Libya.
In the past week, Gingrich has faced charges of flip-flopping on Libya -- being for a no-fly zone before he was against it. He argued today that he moved on his position, because, "I was just trying to follow Obama." That was met with polite laughter.
He went on to argue that if someone were to say jump in the lake, he would have said no. But "once we’re in the lake, I say, "Swim as fast as you can."
Gingrich said the administration has sent a "confused" message on its goals in Libya. The goal, Gingrich said, should -- unequivocally -- be to take out Khaddafy. He even called for ground troops -- just not American ground troops.
In a brief question-and-answer session in the hallways here with reporters after his speech, he attempted to clarify. He said there should be American-trained Arab "advisers," already in the region, who should help the rebels and try to oust Khaddafy.
"We need to be clear the goal is to get rid of Khaddafy," Gingrich said. He called the administration's message "obscure and inaccurate" and added that the "confusing" message helps Khaddafy's supporters because they are "confused about what we're doing."
He demurred, however, when asked if it was a mistake for former President George W. Bush to try and bring Khaddafy back into the fold diplomatically.
He also hit Obama for not consulting closely enough with Congress.
"When the president decides to take the country to war," Gingrich said, "there needs to be a serious public dialogue." He added the president needs to go to Congress for a supplemental to fund the military action.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour are among a group of Republicans gathered in Iowa hoping to potentially win over voters for 2012.
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"Just to educate you, the Ku Kluk Klan was an offshoot of the racist Democratic Party."
That's true -- the racist SOUTHERN Democratic party. Beginning in 1968 with his Southern Strategy, Richard Nixon appealed to those racist SOUTHERN Democrats and 40 years later -- the South is now totally Republican. For the most part, the attitudes have not changes -- just the party affiliation.
You 're referring to the Dixiecrats like Strom Thurmond all of whom moved to the Republican Party where they could practice a more subtle brand of racist policy.
Charlie, the reason the South went from Democrat to Republican is because conservative democrats are no longer welcome in the party.
"Charlie, the reason the South went from Democrat to Republican is because conservative democrats are no longer welcome in the party."
BS -- it was ALL about race. LBJ said it best when he signed the Voting Rights Bill in 1965. While this isn't an exact quote it goes something like -- I have just handed the South to the Republicans for the next two generations. And -- today's Republican party is NOT conservative. It is a radical, fanatical right wing party that would not welcome the likes of William Buckley, Bary Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
Gingrich: You are a serial adulterer. May God have mercy on your soul. Voters won't.
Gringich's comment on the Libyan adventure intriged me. All during Goegre Bush's yearst hey neve roffered a war budget or a tax to pay for it. As Gringich said "once you're in the water swim as fast as you can".
I suppose that means you can't swim and plan a budget at the same time.
But there' more than "just words" as Deval Patrick likes to say. Under Gramm -Rudman "wars" don' t count in defining defcits.
That why they are happy to call it a "war"..They'd be even obliging to declare one too. Get's them poff the hook on Financial liabilites.
Well certainly Barbour doesn't want to talk about education--His state has the lowest test scores of the 50 states.
And what the heck does this guy really know about growing economies--Mississippi has the lowest per capita income of the 50 states.
Barbour is running on tax cuts for the wealthy and his corporate buddies at the Country Club and divisive cultural issues. Meanwhile he has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to improve education or job opportunities for his own people. His real claim to fame in Miss. is that he has successfully distracted the working class people there with coded racism("The Glorious Civil War"), resentment against immigrants, and "Christianist" cultural issues, while he and his buddies pick their pockets clean.
Right now Haley isn't running for anything. He said he'd make an official decision in April. What he does know about is fiscal responsibility and that throwing money at schools doesn't make students smarter. I used to do Dell warranty repair and I had a service call in Greenwood, MS to replace a couple of motherboards in a few of the different computer labs. In the typing class they were using $400+ dual core desktops simply to learn how to type. They had thirty of them in that one room, was that money well spent? Did those dual core 2.4GHz machines teach anybody how to type better than the 66MHz machines we had when I was in school?
You must have forgot to point out that the MS legislature is and for the last 30+ years been controlled by the Democrats. You do understand that the legislature writes the laws and appropriates the monies for these various departments and institutions.
I'm sure those test scores don't reflect the private schools.
I wonder what that per capita income number would look like when you factor in cost of living? I can rent a three bedroom two bath brick house with 2000 sq ft for $800.00 per month, can you do that where you live? I wonder why Nissan and Toyota both chose to build manufacturing plants here instead of where you live? Furthermore it is NOT the government's function to produce jobs. That has been and hopefully always will be the private sector. During WWII the Feds may have put in the order and paid for the Liberty ships, but it was private industry that produced them. Almost every great American accomplishment, with exception to NASA, can be attributed to the private sector.
I've been following these articles for a few months, and I'm beginning to see a trend. (in regards to msnbc) First off, its obvious to me, that the intent of the authors/editors of these articles is to find a Republican punching bag. Newt currently holds that title. They keep putting Haley up there because he's from Mississippi; knowing that the prejudiced readers will jump on the bandwagon and scream racism and prejudice without even thinking of how prejudiced they sound/are. The trend I see though is now that Haley is making the fund raising circuits and giving speeches they quote him less and less. The reason? They don't want you to know that he is an intelligent well spoken politician. After they hear him speak they get afraid that they may be looking at a Republican version of Bill Clinton. (in the sense that nobody thought he would win the nomination let alone the presidency) They just want you to call him Boss Hog and other such ad hominems. (it means name calling and its a logical fallacy FYI) They are simply trying to "poison the well", another logical fallacy. It works. Always has, always will. If you tell the same lie loud enough and long enough people will eventually believe it. I have not seen one comment on here that contradicts Haley's statement that the President's energy policy is really an environmental policy. This is the point where I like to point out that its not really the President's policy so much as it is the Congress' legislation. He just happened to sign the bill. It always amuses me how people make it sound like Presidents write legislation. Though this President was a member of the Senate, so whenever I hear him or any other former member of Congress say we should do this or we should do that, I ask myself why didn't you introduce legislation to that effect when it was your job to do so? (*cough* Newt) I'm getting off the point. Back to the question I'd like to raise. Why hasn't anybody applauded or opposed Haley for asking for more domestic energy? More to the point, he describes the exact energy production techniques he believes we need. Details are something politicians rarely give, but not Haley. The first thing he'll tell you is he's a lobbyist, a business man, and a politician. He doesn't give half answers, he doesn't flip flop, he tells it the way he sees it and it scares the liberal media; because they are beginning to realize they may have given the Republicans what we want. Too bad he's from Mississippi though, all the racists are just going to come out and scream racism saying things like MS is just a backward racist state ignoring the fact that by saying something to that effect would mean that 40% of MS are self hating black folks.
Harely barbour says we need more gas. Well the Republicans have lots of that..but..it's not the kind that provides real energy..they talk about drilling-but they never talk about the fracking that destroys water supplies..they talk abou tm mining but never about the acid water..They talk about more coal, and never about the acid rain that pollutes the lakes and kills the fish...
MOre for what?
What good is more if you only have minimum wage jobs? You are never going to be able to afford more.
More for what? If theytake awys your work rules and make you work double shifts, who is going to have any time the enjoy that More.
Mre of what if it never gets there..Where arethe power linesthe Republicans promised 8 years ago for mine mouth power plants? Where's the repulican plan to interlink electical grids to solar and wind enrgy built on the prarie..
Harely Barbour tries to sound like Samuel Gompers the famous labor leader. If more is so much,why is Mississippi last in everything? If more is so good, why is Miississippi so bad?
Back in 2002 I remember watching the House debate about allowing private companies to build a pipeline for Liquified Natural Gas from Alaska down to the lower 48 states. Republicans were for it, Democrats were against it. This went on for years, and whenever the bill would make headway Charlie Rangel would somehow slip in a conscription amendment in there just to kill the bill. Currently we ship that gas to Japan, they repackage it and send to us. If you want clean Hydrogen LNG is the best way. My brother works for an oil company and his job is to find the people that own the mineral rights to wells and give them a check for the percentage that gets pumped out of them. According to him the majority of them here in MS, were capped off in the seventies because at the time OPEC made it where it was too expensive to be profitable, so they capped them off. Now they're opening them back up because with prices where they are today it is worth the investment.
The majority of our electricity comes from coal, so that's not going away anytime soon. Here in MS we are lucky to be a part of the Tennessee Valley Water Authority, so we have plenty of clean hydro turning those turbines and producing electricity.
The majority of the potable water in the eastern US is processed from lakes, streams, and creeks. Not the water table. Fracking may harm the water supply to the plants and animals in the immediate area, but not to humans.
Having a much smaller population than the big liberal cities of Boston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles; we don't have the pollution problems that people in these areas do. Which, I wish they would understand that instead of trying to force the rest of the nation to pay for or adhere to policies that really only affect their states. What's good for New York isn't always good for Mississippi, and vice versa. For instance, in MS we have a fair amount of nuclear power plants, but no earthquakes. Those plants could produce energy for California without the ramifications that are so readily apparent in Japan at the moment.
Now you're just using the old "slippery slope" logical fallacy. 'What if they MAKE me work double shifts?' If I choose to work overtime; I will be paid overtime. State law guarantees that, not some union boss halfway across the country. And of course I could always find other work, hunt or fish for meat, and grow my own crops. Anybody that tries to FORCE somebody to work will find out real quick how effective the second amendment can be.
As for your power lines, my guess is since its Illinois you may want to take that up with the mob. And I hope you are aware that those Mine Mouth power plants you are demanding are coal fired, in particular, coal mined in Illinois.
Solar is expected to out produce wind in about a decade, and it is so much cheaper to implement. The problem with both is that they are not constant. With hydrocarbons you can regulate the supply to meet the demand.
Your last three comments are an example of the "straw man" logical fallacy. Please provide a source that quotes Haley as trying to be like Samuel Gompers, or that MS is last in everything and sooo bad.
As long as you don't live in Jackson, MS life's pretty good down here, but Jackson continually ranks, per capita, in the top five for violent crime, so you see...we are close to number one in a few areas.
They may be showing different styles in their lies, but they both look to me like the cheeks of the same baboon's asss.
It appears from this post a lot of Democratic union people and people who think we are on the right road to success frequent MSNBC. Amazing when you look around at the policies of this administration......when you can figure out from all the transparency what they might be today. Sort of like shifting sand in the desert.
Ah Ruckus, I hate to burst your thinking bubble, but you are totally wrong! You obviously don't know your history. Tell me now, since it isn't the government's job to create jobs when our economy is tanked, how do suppose the "New Deal" got done? By corporations? Big money? Wall Street thugs? Wrong!
The Government stupid! I can only guess your education level is not up to par! Go back to school and learn History 101.
As a Moderate Republican voter, I can honestly say that all 12 Repub Right-wing extremist have no chance against the President!
Obama will win in a landslide in 2012 with this group of yoyo clowns!
Haley Barbour? What a joke! Certified A$$ Kisser to corporations! Can't even control his state's debt! Doesn't seek to create jobs in his state and he wants to run this country! Over my dead body he will!
Newton! A$$ Wiper! One thing at a time! Two time crook! Takes bribes of campaign money and sticks it in his pocket for the next go around! Watch, he'll back down! He'll get his fill of contribution money and be gone! Sleezeball!
As for Palin and Bachmann, I'd like to see both of them in the room at the same time! That would be laughable! Palin is too stupid and Bachmann is too money hungry!
Wantabee Huckabee is a southern born hick who can't see the trees from the forest with the American people. Thinks all children with pre-existing conditions should not have health insurance. They're like burnt houses! "Can't insure a burnt house"
Pawlenty, and the rest are too extreme in their views and mix religion with politics. That's a no no!
Church and State are equal but separate! Iowians need to stop throwing religion at politics, as if it's a way to help the economy. NOT!
GOP Right-wingers are nothing but a gang of thieves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Out! All of you! Liars and Hypocrites!!
Bonehead Boehner and Crybaby Cantor; WHERE ARE THE JOBS LEGISLATION BILL?????????????????????
Signed, a Responsible Republican
crikey, that doesn't leave you anyone to vote for. ---- gonna be a boring election day for you, i guess.
Would you name a politician suitable for your?
why are they wasting money ??? ---- neither one of these guys has a chance of winning the nomination.
What I really love is the quote from Haley Barbour; "The main thing is the main thing is" Why speak? He can't even articulate a conversation! Let alone push us back for more big oil and gas and coal! Sure! He doesn't want to see us having renewable energy! He wants to shove the big oil down our throats!
Sit down Haley, and be quite! You are not qualified to be a President!
Two dou chebags. Slightly different packaging.
Arlene, you said it! Nicely done too!
Why is this a news story?....everybody on the planet earth knows that Newt and Haley do not have a chance in hell of winning their party's nomination. Why are you all wasting precious time even insulting them about it. Save your personal attacks for citizen Palin when she visits another foreign country or like the nearly 4,000 posts that were received last Monday because she was trying out the knishes in Israel. Talk about DEM & LIBBER paranoia.......get real will ya! You act like it will be November 2, 2010 again and right soon! Well maybe for the Senate.....but that's it.
Running for president -- or at least hinting at it -- is a good way for Republicans to make money. It almost assures you of a profitable gig on Fox. Look at mike Huckabee. Five years he was an unknown governor of Arkansas. Today -- he's a multi millionaire. Newt's made a fortune at Fox and after this supposed run for presidents fails he will be back at Fox. No doubt some of the candidates talking about running in 2012 will also find good gigs at Fox as well as right wing radio after this is all over.
If running for President albeit is nothing but an excercise in futility and becomes nothing more than a "good way to make money".....then more power to them. However that only makes them good ol' fashioned American bred entrepreneurs and NOT Presidential candidates. Let's call a spade a spade here and identify them as "fund raisers" and obviouslyy NOT Presidential candidates that can't even garner 5% of the vote and respond to them accordingly and openly insult them with great vigor according to their TRUE intentions......makin......MO MONEY!
It does not matter who we elect from what party. No politician represents the people. They are all in the pockets of one lobbyist or another.
It really doesn't seem to matter who gets picked by the GOP to be their candidate. If it is a mainstream republican, then he or she won't get tea party approval. If the candidate is in the tea party, then he or she won't get the approval of the mainstream republicans. Just look at what is going on in the congress right now. What happened to the leadership in the GOP? There is more fighting among the GOP then with the democrats.
As a Republican I want to shoot myself after seeing the losers and egomaniacs that are running for the Republican ticket. All of them are a joke and don't stand a chance against Obama. Only Mitt Romey is the viable candidate and even then he has big issues as he reinvents himself over and over again.
Waddya say righties, the good 'ol boy or the televangelist?
Gingrich is a has been that never was. A slob of a man trying to preach his values as if he were some great statesmen, something this country lacks. The good ones are to honest & the bad ones have no conscious. They are looking for the deal of a lifetime for themselves. Politics today is about what can an elected official get for himself & make voters think the other way. I see gingrich as a backroom talker hiding facts, being dishonest & just plainly looking for a buck to make no matter how just so people don't know how. I trust some mafia members then a lot of politicians. Trust in government is got to be at an all time low & some rules need to be changed such as term limits for all. Take away the rights of the political system that gives itself raises to their own pockets. Money has corrupted our system of government to no end. More crooks run for office then honest Americans. Capital Hilll doesn't want honest people, it's like some exclusive club they are all in. See what they can get for themselves.
It's really bad when you see lying snakes like Gingrich thinking President. It's the bottom of the barre for America with this FOX SLOB!
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Newt is qualified, Sarah and Michelle aren't according with the left. Therefore, it does not matter if he is a lying snake.