tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post8985972742209440127..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Rocky's Revenge, Sort OfJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-47198487104188278282011-03-10T13:10:37.663-06:002011-03-10T13:10:37.663-06:00I love that it's 2011 and we're still spec...I love that it's 2011 and we're still speculating about Nelson Rockefeller's potential presidential campaigns.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-24653305045622438602011-03-10T08:49:39.964-06:002011-03-10T08:49:39.964-06:00Matt made part of my point: Two very salient dist...Matt made part of my point: Two very salient distinctions between Senator McCain's and Speaker Gingrich's dubious marital histories are recency and recidivism. <br /><br />McCain, by his own admission, acted very shabbily in the last years of his first marriage. However, that behavior, by 2000, let alone 2008, was two decades old, and since then he has (to the degree one can know this for certain -- see Edwards, John) been a loving and faithful husband. His misbehavior also preceded his entry into electoral politics, and certainly his emergence as a major national figure.<br /><br />Gingrich is now confessing himself to shabby behavior towards his former spouses. Confession is good for the soul, and I am willing to accept the sincerity of his remorse here, but the media may see it differently because (a) his more recent divorce was only one decade or so ago, with the estrangement apparently beginning while he was a sitting House Speaker, and (b) he's endured very messy divorces twice, implying some lack of personal growth after early middle age, when McCain's and Gingrich's first marriages both crumbled.<br /><br />A much older reference that Jon B. made in his headline could be made to Ronald Reagan vs. Nelson Rockefeller. They were both divorced men, but Reagan's divorce happened about 20 years before he ran for governor of California, was by most accounts initiated by his wife (not due to infidelity, just growing apart or some such), and when Reagan remarried after a suitable interval (about four years after the divorce from his first wife was final), it was to a woman relatively close to him in age (he was about 40, she was about 30).<br /><br />Rockefeller divorced his first wife as the sitting governor of New York in 1962; they had recently lost their youngest son, presumed dead in New Guinea in November 1961, which can certainly strain a marriage, but there were also widespread insinuations that Nelson Rockefeller was unfaithful. He remarried after about a year (Wikipedia doesn't have a precise date of the divorce, but it was sometime in 1962, and the second marriage was in June 1963). Much was made of the fact that the new bride was herself a divorcee with four children. She was about 20 years younger than Rocky, and they had a child very quickly after the union, in the midst of the 1964 campaign for the GOP nomination. It has been speculated that Rocky's tumultuous personal life may have cost him the 1964 GOP nomination.<br /><br />Finally, the awkward last act of Rocky's life was when he suffered a fatal heart attack while -- details are sketchy -- but apparently enjoying the private company of a 23 year old female aide. If Rockefeller had survived, his private life would have been much more of an issue in a hypothetical 1980 presidential campaign than Reagan's.John McNultynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-33838319819839237622011-03-09T17:59:03.541-06:002011-03-09T17:59:03.541-06:00It gets sillier today....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/...It gets sillier today....<br />http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110309/ap_on_el_ge/us_gingrich2012<br /><br />Gingrich had an affair because it was the patriotic thing to do.Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-62195116640372203292011-03-09T16:04:29.319-06:002011-03-09T16:04:29.319-06:00Oh, to address your brother's point without re...Oh, to address your brother's point without registering at The Phoenix's website:<br /><br />Yes, it's the last thing we all remember Newt doing. But, it also helps that its only 11 years old, whereas McCain's was 28 years old. And, Newt was the recently deposed, larger-than-life Speaker who had tried to impeach a president for an affair; McCain was just some no-account senator at the time so there really wasn't a memory of it. So, I think there are a number of reasons it's likely to come up.Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-7110250597034563682011-03-09T15:56:12.848-06:002011-03-09T15:56:12.848-06:00First, the Romney joke would have been "he...First, the Romney joke would have been "he'd be willing to get remarried....without a divorce."<br /><br />And the reference.....my grad students were talking about fear as a motivator, and "an almost fanatical devotion to the pope" went RIGHT over their heads. Grad students. *sigh*<br /><br />Your mock serious post would have to have something about how much Republicans love marriage....they have to do it multiple times!<br /><br />Of course, were Gingrich to be the nominee, it'd make two in a row for the GOP...two guys whose current wives were also their mistresses from the last marriage.Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-84956421519494944872011-03-09T14:49:01.671-06:002011-03-09T14:49:01.671-06:00"Dennis Kucinick, for whatever it's worth..."Dennis Kucinick, for whatever it's worth, was on wife #3"<br /><br />Dude. Have you SEEN the third Mrs. Kucinich? God exists, and She has a sense of humor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com