Dear Newt,
So. Newt. This is it, huh? Your last stand. You’re probably not ever going to run for office again so these last weeks of the primary race are your final opportunity to capture this kind of national spotlight.
What are you going to do with it?
Now, you can count me solidly among your detractors because I have a shitload of serious misgivings about you, starting with that whole adherence to supply-side doctrine that you should be too smart to believe. I mean, really, Newt. If supply side policies were going to work, wouldn’t they have by now? You claim to be a history professor. Have you ever studied a period of history where aggregating wealth among producers at the expense of consumers built a solid economic machine? Hmmmm? I also think you’re arrogant, reckless, and incapable of building strong, lasting coalitions, even among your allies. I mean, let’s face it. None of your erstwhile friends in the House are jumping up and down shouting their support for you, are they? They sure aren’t. That’s telling. Especially since you got drummed out of politics for personal pecadillos, not political failure. You should have some friends left. Where are they?
Actually, you’re probably capable of being one of the best politicians in history if you didn’t keep tripping over your ego. You know how to frame debate to bring public sympathy to your side, you know how to muscle legislation through Congress, and you know how to make deals with other politicians. You engineered an historic majority change-over in Congress back in the day. You have political chops and you can work the system.
A system that sucks. You know it sucks. You know elections are all about the money. You hinted at it recently when it was revealed that your campaign is in the red by some $4.5 million and you were quoted as saying that your staff was trying to spend like Romney without the actual war chest to do that.
I have no doubt that you think you’re a better politician and Romney. Hell, I think you’re a better politician than Romney. But we both know Romney’s money is going to win the day. Doesn’t that chap your ass?
Newt, you have maybe one or two more primaries left before you have to drop out of this race. Why not make your exit a blaze of glory? There was a time that you styled yourself as a reformer. You can still work for that. You can stand up and say “This system with the SuperPACS and unlimited spending and multi-year campaigns is bullshit. It’s limiting the power of the individual vote and placing power, instead, in the hands of the wealthiest, who buy their hand-selected candidates before average voters even get a chance to consider the election. Americans are getting screwed and it’s time to change things so that government is for the people, of the people, and by the people again.”
C’mon Newt. Do it! You’d capture the news cycle for days! You could be the spark that build a fire of real campaign reform! You could change American politics forever! Because you know, you KNOW, that it isn’t about the Right versus the Left anymore. It’s about the Money. No one is ever going to win on the policy front because the Money dominates the whole system.
Pull down the curtain, Newt. Show us the greedy little Money-Man running the show. You can do it. You have nothing to lose and Americans have everything to gain.
Sincerely,
An Average Voter
OMG – if ONLY!