Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Newt and His Confession   [Rich Lowry]

Here is a piece noting (somewhat critically) Newt's confession strategy: Get out in front of his personal problems from the past by talking frankly about them now. This makes sense. I think it was shrewd for Newt to go on Dobson to talk about this stuff. Dobson wasn't a soft-ball interviewer—he didn't let Newt get away with anything—but at the deepest level he was sympathetic to Newt and his plea for God's forgiveness. Politically, however, there is a limit to how much Newt can do to minimize the damage from that time in his career. He can perhaps minimize it at the margins, but the perceptions of his recklessness and poor judgment (which account for Newt's high negatives) probably aren't going to go away. I have a keen appreciation of Newt's talents and strengths, but if he runs, he's probably going to have to find a way to win despite those high negatives. There's no way to "inoculate" himself from them, certainly not with one radio interview.

03/13 03:29 PMShare