The Republican Primary at Half-Time

Relentless criticism of Madonna's Super Bowl half-time show proves I am too old.  My reaction to her 12-minute spectacle was favorable, thinking this is "classic, old-school" Madonna, and thought, "good for her; she's staking a deserved claim on her own legacy."  That a 53 year-old pop icon still has "it" was no consolation, however, as the mostly-negative (ranging to hyperbolic) reviews microscopically dissected every move.

Naturally, this reminded me of the Republican Primary.

Before casting Newt Gingrich as the GOP Madonna (shudder), just consider how easily a woman with 25 years of top-of-the-charts hit records and albums over several successful "reinventions," each attracting an excited new generation of fans, is so quickly written-off as "old hat" and discarded by critics who never "knew her when."  If Madonna can be spit-out by the vox-populi like stale bread, I hate to think who'll be next to go.  Bon Jovi? The Beatles? Michael Jackson?  Or is it that you have to die or quit to keep the public's respect?

More likely, the blame simply goes to our rapidly dwindling attention spans.  With instant-messaging, instant-tweeting, instant-uploading, instant-everything, everything is old.  How could it not be?  But when everything is "old" the moment it appears on our screens, nothing is valued or valuable.  If Madonna wasn't so well-paid for the Super Bowl gig, she'd be right to say, "why bother."


I've made no secret of my hope that the former House Speaker will become the Republican nominee for president.  Despite his faults and the ingratitude of a generation of Republican understudies, Gingrich brings vision to the game called the American Presidency.  For me, Newt shows when he speaks that sees what being leader of the free world is all about, compared, let's say, to carefully doing a perfect job, as if that were possible.  But whether you like Newt or not, like Madonna, Newt is not new.

Unlike the fickle, culture audience that plunders its own in a crowd-sourced tweet, Republican primary voters veer steadfastly toward the old and the familiar to their detriment.  The process that produces timeworn nominees like Bob Dole and John McCain should otherwise be nominating Newt Gingrich, the conservative who's got "elder statesman" written all over him.

The only explanation for why Newt's campaign is wilting at the GOP half-time show in Las Vegas, between Florida and Super Tuesday, is that Newt has "the Madonna problem."

No matter how significant or revolutionary Newt's hard-fought political accomplishments were in the past, they are not remembered as the huge eye-popping moments that they were at the time-- no more than Madonna's last platinum album or sold-out touring concert shows are remembered as more than a matter of record-- except by those who experienced them.

So as the campaign goes on from Las Vegas, Newt's campaign spectacle may just be an exercise like Madonna's half-time show last night: To stake a rightful claim in his own deserved legacy while the public moves on erratically in search of the "newer" and the "hotter."