A-list GOP business leaders come out for Gingrich

Newt just keeps getting hits and getting on base these last couple of days.

I saw the headline on this release about “Business Leaders” endorsing him, and thought it would be just another list like many others.

But it’s really quite substantial:

  • J. Egerton Burroughs, a Conway based real estate developer and owner of Carolina Consultant Company, Chairman at Burroughs & Chapin Company, Chapin & Burroughs Brothers Properties and a member of the Board of University of South Carolina.
  • Joe Edens, owner of Edens, a Midlands based real estate enterprise with retail centers throughout the Eastern and Midwest United States.
  • Vivian Wong, owner of Global Trading Consortium of Greenville which creates attracts and links business markets across the globe.
  • Eddie Floyd, renowned MD and driving force in the Republican party from Florence.  Floyd is also a member of the Board of the University of South Carolina and former special representative to UN under President Bush.
  • Jim Roquemore, CEO and Chairman of Patten Seed Company, General Manager of Super-Sod/Carolina.  Mr. Roquemore is also Chairman of South Carolina Bank & Trust and sits on the Southeast and National Boards of the Boy Scouts of America.
  • Doug Wendell, Chairman of the Board of Coastal Carolina National Bank, Chair of the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp, and national tourism leader.
  • Leighton Cubbage of Greenville, partner and co-founder of Serrus Capital Partners, community leader and avid supporter of Clemson University.
  • Robert Royall, former US Ambassador to Tanzania and former SC Commerce Secretary
  • Gayle O. Averyt of Columbia is the former Chairman of Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company, which now operates in 48 states, and is largely credited with the tremendous growth of the South Carolina Republican Party.
  • John Rainey, is a practicing attorney, Chairman of the Board of Easlan Capital and former Chairman of the South Carolina Board of Economic Advisors.
  • Bob McAlister, veteran South Carolina crisis communications and public policy consultant based in Columbia.
  • I saw Gayle Averyt at a Huntsman event last week. And I spoke with Bob McAlister, and he hadn’t made up his mind yet. I guess he has now.

    John Rainey. Bob Royall. This is A-list. These are people Mr. I’m-a-Successful-Businessman Romney should have backing him. This is a blow to his campaign.

    Ex-wife or no ex-wife, this looks like momentum.

    21 thoughts on “A-list GOP business leaders come out for Gingrich

    1. bud

      If there was ever any smidgen of doubt as to the character of the Republican party it has now been answered in spades. What a disgusting show of support for a man who by all accounts has no moral character whatsover. And this is the party of family values? Seriously, what hypocricy. The frosting on the cake is Gingrich attacking the “liberal media” as if this is someone else’s fault other than his sorry, miserable ass.

      I’ll vote for Ron Paul on Saturday with one thought in mind and one only, to try and nominate the candidate who is most likely to help Obama win re-election. Any other consideration at this point is out the window. I simply cannot stand any of these sorry characters.

      Going back to my list of 5 potential candidates I presented to Brad here’s how I would rank them:

      John Edwards
      Ron Paul
      Nikki Haley
      Mark Sanford
      Donald Trump

      I would probably put Rick Santorum just below Ron Paul. Then below any of these I’d have Newt and the increasingly disgusting Mitt Romney.

    2. Ralph Hightower

      I wonder how long Newt will keep his current model. It seems that Newt trades in his wife for a newer model when the current one gets a defect, such as cancer, or multiple sclerosis.

    3. Juan Caruso

      Let’s not confuse Newt’s alleged moral character with Bill Clinton’s proven perjury and the behavior untrustworthy behavior for which John Edwards remains under indictment.

      As further examples, cheating on one’s spouse and using abortion as birth control do not entail arrest, imprisonment or fines.

      The law recognizes morality these days about as often as South Carolina voters recognize lawyers as good politicians.

    4. Silence

      This article might as well have been titled: “A-list GOP business leaders come out for Obama reelection.”

    5. `Kathryn Fenner

      @ Juan== Newt has admitted to his adultery—it isn’t “alleged.”

      and the law isn’t about “morality”–since morality is not a nationally agreed-upon concept. Your morality, I am guessing, derives from your religious beliefs. One is free, in this country, do have no religious beliefs.

    6. Steve Gordy

      “Alleged moral character?” What a hoot! A man who’s gotten divorced twice under questionable circumstances may be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but he’s one sorry bet if you’re looking for the kind of leadership that can change a country. Typical Republican logic, I guess . . .

    7. Juan Caruso

      KF, The open marriage allegation has not been admitted, however, nor is it even a thought with reasonable credibility considering the state of his current marriage (Oh wait! We have not heard from another bottom-feeding opportunist like Cain’s bimbo yet) have we?

      Surely DNC lawyers must have planned another phoney allegation by now with all the experience garnered from Betsey Ross Wright.

      If you will recall, Wright established the rapid response system for Clinton and coined the term “bimbo eruptions” to describe Clinton’s dalliances.

    8. `Kathryn Fenner

      He has admitted to having an affair for six years with current wife three, while married to wife number two.

      Your morality is certainly curious. It is okay to have affairs, but not to be a lawyer.

    9. Steven Davis

      “It is okay to have affairs, but not to be a lawyer.”

      Yep, at least with an affair you have a 50-50 participation in the screwing you’re getting.

    10. Juan Caruso

      “It is okay to have affairs, but not to be a lawyer.” – KF

      Absolutely wrong, KF!

      It is fine to be a lawyer (like my relatives); it is transparently collusive, corruptive and deceitful to become just another elected lawyer pretending to represent most voters.

      Harping on the duration of someone else’s affairs or the numbers of their wives is, as lawyers repeat over and over again, a matter for the consenting adults. Inadvertently, you make some women seem incapable of fundamental discretion in both husband selection and retention.

      If that is your point, you have certainly won my agreement.

    11. `Kathryn Fenner

      I think it is very hypocritical of “family values” voters to back Gingrich, just as it was hypocritical of him to bash Clinton for having an affair with a staffer when Gingrich was also having an affair with a staffer…after having had an affair with his then current wife while married to his first wife.

      If you are not preaching morality, it’s fine to ignore Gingrich’s personal life.

      Let’s move on to his consulting fees for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a historian–his characterization, then….

    12. bud

      Let’s not confuse Newt’s alleged moral character with Bill Clinton’s proven perjury and the behavior untrustworthy behavior for which John Edwards remains under indictment.
      -Juan

      I didn’t know Bill Clinton or John Edwards were running for office. Seriously Juan why bring them up. They didn’t make Newt cheat on 2 wives with serious diseases, propose an open marriage or run around the country preaching the virtues of the “family values” GOP while having an affair.

    13. Bart

      “I’ll vote for Ron Paul on Saturday..” bud

      bud,

      Think Harpootlian will put you on his “Sh!t List” of Democrats who dare to vote in the primary and commit the unforgiving crime of “rubbing elbows with some pretty despicable people”?

      If other Democrats vote in the primary and rub elbows with you, does that officially qualify you as being a “despicable” person?

      Lets hope you are not looking to be a delegate to the DNC convention in Charlotte. If you are, Mr. Harpootlian is going to do a Santa Claus routine by checking the voters list and determining who in the Democrat party has been naughty or nice. Heck, he may have your voter registration card priviledges revoked.

      Well, I guess voter intimidation and suppression is not owned in total by those “despicable” Republicans. At least Harpootlian has the gonads to come out and put it in the public record he plans to engage in both.

      Harpootlian, the gift from Democrats to Republicans that keeps on giving and giving and giving, every time he opens his mouth. Maybe he should have been on the stage with the Republican candidates. His foot in mouth disease easily matches theirs, actually, exceeds it at times.

    14. Phillip

      No one seems to be commenting on the main thrust of this post, which is, as I take it: 16 seemingly respectable business leaders, presumably all reasonably well-educated by at least some measure, with (one would think) SOME awareness of the larger world beyond SC and beyond America, are on record as saying they would like to see Newt Gingrich become the leader of the free world.

      There are no words, really. I’m wondering if some are just unenthralled with Romney, hoping for a “stop,” enough to buy time to organize a late dark-horse entry, persuade a Chris Christie or Jeb Bush to enter the race. Surely few of these folks are actually pro-Gingrich. And if they are, one has to ask what has provoked the very special kind of anger and hostility that these successful individuals must then be feeling against those who are either less successful than they, or culturally/sociologically different from their experience, to endorse somebody so radical, so incendiary, so obviously temperamentally unfit to be commander-in-chief, to have nearly half the planet’s military might at his fingertips.

      What, exactly, has radicalized these individuals?

    15. Kathleen

      That is a VERY serious list. The people on it wouldn’t appear to belong on anyones list of “typical, crazy South Carolinians.” What precisely is going on?

    16. Brad

      As Kathleen says, it’s a very serious list. Not the usual suspects. Every name on it represents a coup by Gingrich.

      Phillip asks what motivates them. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I called one — Bob McAlister — earlier this evening, and here’s what he told me

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