Words of wisdom coming from David Axelrod, the top strategist and adviser to President Obama, suggesting that the more Newt Gingrich leads in the polls, the more scrutiny he’ll get. And with scrutiny, the skeletons come falling out!
Discussing the GOP primary electorate, Axelrod said, “All the energy is on the side of the Tea Party folks. And Gov. Romney comes from that other tradition of the Republican Party. And ya got to give him credit for trying. He’s done everything but light himself on fire for the last eight weeks trying to win.”
Then Axelrod turned to Gingrich–who has resurrected his candidacy after nearly tanking earlier in the year.
“Now Newt is back. Last week you all left him for dead at the checkout counter at Tiffany’s and now he’s back, a lion in winter,” Axelrod quipped. “That’s L-I-O-N by the way, I don’t want to stir up any trouble here.”
The Obama team has been tying Gingrich to the Tea Party movement, and Axelrod reinforced this messaging at the briefing.
“In certain ways [Gingrich] fits the role for this, because as we pointed out earlier in the week he is the original tea partier. You know, he brought that kind of politics to Congress in the early 90s, he led three government shut downs in order to try and roll back environmental protection…roll back the Department of Education and education programs, he wanted to cut Medicare, he wanted to give more tax cuts to the wealthy. He was really a forerunner of what we see today.”
Axelrod also noted that Gingrich has a long record that will be scrubbed and scrutinized.
“So the question is, can he sustain this over time?,” Axelrod said.
“I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom that I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his …colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, ‘just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.’ So, you know, the Speaker is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view.”
Just what you need – a vision of Newt’s monkey butt. Hope you’re not having dinner. 🙂
