NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Southern Baptist leader apologized this week for any hurt caused by explosive remarks accusing President Barack Obama and other Black leaders of exploiting Trayvon Martin's death for political gain.

Al Sharpton has patterned his career so closely after the Jesse Jackson model that he could be justifiably charged with identity theft. Like Jackson, he began wearing a Martin Luther King medallion around his neck. Like Jackson, he started his own civil rights organization. Like Jackson, he ran for president of the United States. Like Jackson, he now has his own radio and television shows. And like Jackson, he has become a confidante of the man who occupies the White House.

At a ceremony last week at Georgetown University to celebrate Jesse Jackson’s 70th birthday and a half-century in the Civil Rights Movement, Sharpton proved that he not only had studied Jesse Jackson, but the Civil Rights Movement just as carefully.

“We try to go from ’68 to ’08 — like we leapfrogged from Dr. King to the president of the United States, Barack Obama,” Sharpton explained. Much of the progress in Black economic and political development between the time Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis and the election of Obama in 2008 should be largely attributed to Jackson, Sharpton suggested.

Jesse Jackson was among the handful of top aides to Dr. King. When King was killed in Memphis, Ralph Abernathy succeeded him as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but it was Jackson who assumed the mantle as Black America’s top civil rights leader.

Jackson, who was selected by King to head Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, challenged major corporations to not only hire more Blacks, but to expand opportunities for African Americans to own automobile dealerships and fast-food franchises and provide goods and services to Fortune 500 companies.

Sharpton listed Richard Parsons, former CEO of Time Warner, and American Express CEO Ken Chenault as beneficiaries of Jackson’s early work.

“There would not have been anybody in the corporate elite had it not been a movement led by Jackson to say you can’t put a glass ceiling on how far we can go,” Sharpton explained. “It wasn’t that Blacks weren’t qualified to be chairmen of major corporations until the ’80s. There was no movement that had broken the ceiling.”

Lifting the ceiling from national politics was also part of the Jesse Jackson legacy. Although other African Americans had run for president — including Frederick Douglass, Shirley Chisholm and Dick Gregory — none were as successful as Jackson in 1984 and 1988.

Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson, who organized the appreciation event with his wife, Marcia Dyson, who served as Operation PUSH Trade Bureau’s first chief of staff, said what many in the audience were thinking: “Without Jesse Jackson, there would be no Barack Obama.”

The Jackson-Obama relationship turned sour after Jackson was recorded saying that the then-presidential candidate talks down to African Americans and he would like to dismember a certain part of Obama’s body. While that crude comment hurt Jackson’s standing among African Americans excited about the prospect of electing the nation’s first Black president, it does not alter the fact that Obama would not be in the White House without Jackson’s presidential campaigns.

Sharpton was uncharacteristically diplomatic in how he addressed the relationship between Obama and Jackson, noting that after King had helped Carl Stokes become the first Black mayor of Cleveland, he was excluded from the victory celebration.

“The misnomer is that students watching think because you weren’t at the party that you had nothing to do with the achievement,” Sharpton said. “Don’t get confused by the invitation list to the party with those who created what you are celebrating.”

At the tribute to Jackson, he was celebrated for developing a long list of leaders, including Sharpton, former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, political strategist Donna Brazile, activist Marcia Dyson, assistant Agriculture Secretary Joseph Leonard, Black Leadership Forum Executive Director Gary Flowers, ACLU Washington Director Laura W. Murphy and Lezli Baskerville, president of the National Association For Equal Opportunity (NAFEO).

The Rev. Freddie Haynes of Dallas, in what he called an oratorical thank-you note to Jesse Jackson, spoke about the impact of Jackson’s presidential campaigns.

Looking at Jackson, he recalled: “After your speech I was in the barbershop — and you know how we kick it in the barbershop in the ’hood — and some brothers were talking about, ‘Did you hear Jesse?’ Jesse. Jesse. Jesse. And I wasn’t feeling them disrespecting Rev. Jesse Jackson like that. So I said, ‘Do you know Rev. Jesse Jackson?’ And the brother jumped right back at me and said, ‘I don’t know Jesse, but Jesse knows me.’”

Sharpton said Jesse Jackson led the way in urging children to spend less time in front of TV, curbing violence in the Black community and getting youth to believe that “I Am Somebody.”

Sharpton stated, “In many ways, I would say that from the economic fights from the end of the decade he started in the ’70s to the political empowerment that resulted in the first Black attorney general and the first Black president to the whole concept of coalition-building, he has defined the last part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century.”

Michael Eric Dyson put it this way: “Like Muhammad Ali, he shook up the world.” — (NNPA)

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator and media coach. He can be reached through his website, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

CHICAGO — U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago Democrat who took a hushed medical leave two months ago, is being treated for bipolar disorder, the Mayo Clinic announced Monday.

Activist cites Civil Rights Movement, offers encouraging message to protestors

Hoping to spur religious and civic leaders to help the Occupy movement become a mass movement, the Rev. Jesse Jackson visited with interfaith leaders on Monday during a trip to the Occupy Philly encampment.

“This is the lineage of Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s struggle,” Jackson said. “If we fight with discipline and non-violence — we win.”

Jackson made a brief appearance at Noon, stopping by the sprawling encampment on Dilworth Plaza, on the west side of City Hall. It was his third consecutive day at the tent city at a time when the fate of the encampment remains uncertain.

Occupiers are under increasing pressure to move as the city tries to push forward on a $50 million renovation of the plaza expected start any day, and will take more than two years to complete. Last week, city officials posted an eviction notice — but Occupiers have yet to vacate the plaza.

Jackson declined to be drawn into the fray over location.

“There’s enough space in the city,” he said when quizzed by reporters after meeting and praying with several of the Occupy Philadelphia spiritual leaders.

His main purpose was to continue to offer his support for the cause of economic equality by drawing parallels between Occupy and the Civil Rights Movement. He urged civic and church leaders to push for “mass mobilization.”

“We need to get more involved. I am reminded of Dr. King’s last campaign to bring the war on poverty home,” he said. “Dr. King’s last effort in Washington was to occupy the national mall.”

Not everyone welcomed the veteran civil rights leader’s support.

In addition to attracting the attention of the press, Jackson’s visit drew a number of hecklers. One young firebrand ran up to civil rights leader yelling, “Where’s your illegitimate child, Jesse?”

The heckler refused to be silenced as a couple of Occupy members moved him away from Jackson, he continued screaming, “we don’t want you here” until finally he quieted down. Though he was quiet he remained in the background — his right arm raised and his middle finger extended for the benefit of the news cameras.

Angry, incoherent youth was not the only voice of dissent.

Another man, Scott Strader of South Philadelphia, circled Jackson with a sign noting that 800 jobs were on hold as Occupiers decided whether to leave Dilworth Plaza to allow the renovation to proceed.

“I don’t think this cause supersedes that work,” he said, in a tone more rational that his fellow heckler.

The angry young man turned his heckling from Jackson to Strader.

“Why does his voice matter?” he asked the reporters gathered to ask Strader questions.

Jackson stuck to his message of support for the movement as a whole, taking in stride yet another outburst from a woman who kept screaming for her children.

“We’re all in this together,” he said, noting that budget cuts reduced services to the homeless and mentally ill who were suffering along with people facing foreclosure, huge credit card debt and towering student loans.

Strader, who said he had no ties to the construction project and worked as a server in a restaurant, said he couldn’t support the Occupiers.

“There’s a socialist bent here,” he said. “People have to become self-sufficient.”

Jackson predicted that the Occupy movement would prompt political change regardless of the local politics surrounding each individual chapter, or any attempts to shut any one organization down.

“Occupy is a spirit that cannot be arrested and Occupy is not about a place but about a space,” Jackson said. “The space between the rich and the poor.”

Contact Tribune staff writer Eric Mayes at (215) 893-5742 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Credit Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter for using a word during his Democratic National Convention speech last week that President Barack Obama seemingly has purged from his public vocabulary: poverty.

Nutter, just four full sentences into his DNC speech delivered the same night that President Obama spoke, used that “P” word that has practically disappeared from public political discourse among America’s elected leaders and leading media pundits.

Poverty grew by 27 percent increase across America from 2006-2010 according to an Indiana University study released earlier this year.

Poverty in America is “remarkably widespread” that study concluded.

Over fifty-million Americans are living in poverty the IU study stated.

That crushing condition guts over one-third of Philadelphia’s residents daily… the highest among American large cities.

And little surprise, that IU study noted that the largest increases in poverty afflicted Hispanics, African-Americans, children and households headed by women.

America’s child poverty ranks second-highest among 35 developed nations. (A three-person household with $17,900 annual income lives in poverty according to the federal government.)

It’s outrageously ironic that while poverty soars across America critically wounded by the wealth-greed enflamed Great Recession, anti-poverty discourse disappears from policy initiatives advanced by Democratic and Republican leaders.

Conservatives, especially Republicans, have long pushed the falsehood that America’s impoverished are solely responsible for their impoverishment.

That falsehood fudges foundational facts fanning impoverishment like what Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders castigates as America’s “grotesquely unfair distribution of wealth” — were the top 1 percent controls 41 percent of all wealth compared to the bottom 60 percent controlling just 2 percent of America’s wealth.

Irrespective of conflicted understandings about poverty’s root causes, at least one observable certainty exists about those tens of millions of Americans living in poverty or living near falling into poverty.

Not one among the tens-of-millions of impoverished were among the scores of millionaires/billionaires that recently paid a $1-million apiece for a private audience in Tampa Bay with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney aboard the ritzy 150’ yacht “Cracker Bay” that flew the flag of the Cayman Islands where the wealthy often off-shore income to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Mayor Nutter referenced the word poverty when extolling the necessity of all people acquiring solid educations. Nutter scored Republicans for slashing educational funding from kindergarten to college.

Nutter stated that education was essential for achieving his goals in Philadelphia that included reducing poverty.

“In Philadelphia,” Nutter said. “Our public safety, poverty reduction, health and economic development all start with education.”

Obama’s rare referencing of poverty, either from political reticence or refusal, has sparked criticism from within his political constituency.

“This year, both Governor Romney and President Obama at least mentioned the ‘P’ word in their convention speeches, but neither pledged to make the alleviation of poverty in America a priority,” Obama critic Tavis Smiley wrote recently.

It speaks volumes that self-applauded businessman Romney doesn’t practice what he preaches about the virtues of private enterprise generating paycheck producing jobs that keep people from falling into unemployment induced poverty.

Very few Black businesses around Tampa Bay, Fla., received any revenue from the millions of dollars expended on and generated by the RNC that recently anointed Romney.

The presidents of the Tampa Bay Black Chamber of Commerce and the Sun Coast African American Chamber of Commerce both said economic exclusion ruled at Tampa’s RNC.

“There was not big tent of inclusion,” said Tampa Bay Black Chamber head Willis Bowick. “The RNC had no real outreach to Black businesses here.”

Before dismissing this Tampa Bay Black business criticism of GOP exclusion as partisan soar-grapes recognize that Bowick is the president of the African-American Republican Club of Hillsborough County that includes Tampa Bay.

Shortly before the Tampa Bay RNC, a leading Republican activist in that city, Joseph Robinson, resigned from the GOP citing frustrations with the GOP’s persistent lack of response to issues important to African Americans including the lack of Black business inclusion at the RNC.

Robinson, who owns an engineering consulting firm, said things for blacks worsened within the GOP during the past few years paralleling the ascendancy of Tea Party influence.

“With the GOP they do not even give us trickle-down crumbs,” Robinson said.

In contrast to the black business exclusion at Tampa’s RNC, Black business received more equitable access to economic opportunities generated at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC.

Dr. Renae Sanders, chair of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of Commerce, said “several” Black owned companies received DNC related contracts including construction firms and event planners.

That Black business inclusion during the DNC, while commendable, does not off-set the exclusion Black businesses experienced in federal contracting from Obama’s ARRA stimulus.

Between Feb. 2009 and November 2010 black businesses received a paltry 3.5 percent of stimulus contracting compared to white firms receiving 81.3 percent of stimulus-funded contracts.

While the Democrat and Republican parties again pledged to protect Israel from external violence (increasingly exacerbated by Israel’s increasingly intransigent government) neither Obama nor Romney are addressing the urban violence epidemic wrecking America, as noted in a recent article by Philadelphia Tribune reporter Larry Miller.

Miller’s article quoted attorney/activist Michael Coard observing that neither Obama nor Romney address urban violence because “Romney doesn’t give a damn and Obama is afraid to give a damn.”

Civil Rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson recently said Obama “must address poverty and violence in a different way.”

Linn Washington Jr. is a graduate of the Yale Law Fellowship Program.

The pressure continues to mount from grassroots organizations nationwide to bring charges against Sanford, Florida, town watch member George Zimmerman over Zimmerman’s admitted killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman has alleged that Martin was the aggressor, and Zimmerman shot and killed him in self-defense. Martin supporters, however, point to the 911 call, and to Martin’s phone call with his girlfriend just moments before the shooting as just two pieces of proof that Zimmerman escalated the confrontation. That Zimmerman is white while Martin is Black has only escalated matters, with some calling for hate crime charges to be added.

Martin’s killing and the lack of formal charges has prompted marches, demonstrations and petitions from around the country. Over Easter Weekend, dozens of Florida-area college students marched 40 miles from Daytona Beach to Sanford, raising money and awareness on Martin’s behalf; that group, the “Dream Defenders,” also planned on marching on the headquarters of the Sanford Police Department.

“This movement doesn’t hinge on George Zimmerman of the Trayvon Martin case. It was a catalyst,” participant Phillip Agnew told Bay News. “It awoke, or woke up, a lot of people to what’s going on in America.”

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi also weighed in on Martin’s shooting, recently stating that she was disturbed by the manner of his death while vowing to answer every question.

“I am both devastated and deeply troubled that young Trayvon Martin lost his life in a shooting. When someone loses his life at the hands of another, there cannot be any questions surrounding the circumstances of the death,” Bondi said through a statement released by her office. “I have spoken with Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey, whose agency is now involved, and I know that a complete and thorough review of the facts will be conducted. FDLE has skilled investigators of the highest caliber, and no stone will be left unturned in this investigation.

“While the Seminole County State Attorney’s Office has the sole authority regarding a charging decision by law, I will remain vigilant in ensuring that questions are answered.”

The fate of the Zimmerman/Martin case now rests in the hands of State Attorney Angela Corey, when Florida Governor Rick Scott named Corey the special prosecutor amidst complaints of judicial impropriety. And while there has been a growing sense that Corey would call for a grand jury hearing as early as Tuesday, by late Monday afternoon it was reported that Corey declined to convene a grand jury — which means the decision to bring charges against Zimmerman is one Corey’s office alone will make.

Previously, Corey told the Miami Herald that she is so confident in this case that a grand jury may not be needed.

“I always lean towards moving forward without needing the grand jury in a case like this,” Corey told the Herald. “I foresee us being able to make a decision and move on it on our own.”

If a grand jury were to be convened, Corey has the authority to then release its findings, but the identities of the witnesses and much of the testimony would remain sealed.

While many have staunchly defended Martin and claim that Zimmerman is another in a long line of white racists going on African-American hunting sprees, Zimmerman’s supporters — most vocally his friends and family — have claimed that Zimmerman is not a racist, and echoed Zimmerman’s statements that he acted in self-defense.

Civil Rights leaders Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson both chimed in and led marches in Florida and in other locales to bring attention to Martin’s case.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has been at the forefront of the Martin case. Local chapter president Jerry Mondesire — who also owns the Philadelphia Sunday Sun — refused to comment on the Martin case overall, the official stance of the NAACP regarding Martin’s shooting, or the lack of involvement by the Philadelphia branch.

Philadelphia did host a series of rallies and press conferences in the past few weeks, and Ron Felton, president of the Wilkes-Barre branch, did release a statement, in which he talked not only of Martin’s death, but the tragic and underreported murder of 14-year-old Tyler Winstead.

“A candlelight vigil was held on the Public Square by the Wilkes-Barre NAACP and the Peace Center in a show of support to the family of Trayvon Martin … his parents are seeking justice in that the man who murdered their son is arrested and brought to justice,” Felton said through a statement first reported by Times Leader. “Less than 48 hours after the candlelight vigil, another innocent, unarmed 14-year-old boy was shot and murdered less than three doors from his home.”

On that front, the NAACP remains steadfast. It has hosted a series of rallies and marches, with the latest one occurring on March 31 in Sanford.

And on its site — www.naacp.org — it is petitioning for signees of its online open letter to Corey, and the organization has also reconfigured its Facebook page — www.facebook.com/naacp — with “Justice for Trayvon” links and information.

Contact staff writer Damon C. Williams at (215) 893-5745 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

I watched Al Sharpton on “The Wendy Williams Show” last week. Reverend Al has really reinvented himself. Gone are the long, permed tresses inspired by his early mentor and employer “Godfather of Soul” James Brown. They’ve been replaced by a shorter, more conservative “do” that he informed Wendy he had done once a week at a Harlem hair salon. He’s slimmer, too, down 125 lbs. from his peak weight of 305. Rev. Al also has a new nightly cable show on MSNBC, “PoliticsNation,” an opinion program where he talks issues and current topics with guests, a radio show “Keepin’ It Real” broadcast on New York City’s WWRL-AM and “The Al Sharpton Show” which airs on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.

Reverend Sharpton did not morph into this kind of acceptable, mainstream, media darling overnight, it’s been a long time coming. Sharpton first appeared on my radar with the Tawana Brawley accusations in 1987, in which a 15-year-old Black girl from Wappinger Falls, New York alleged that a group of white men had raped her.  Sharpton was one of the young woman’s advisors at the time, along with attorneys Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason. The bizarre case ended with a Grand Jury finding Brawley’s charges false and Sharpton and his cohorts were looked upon with a very jaundiced eye.

Before the Brawley incident, New York City was already unhinged and Al Sharpton was the go-to guy when there was trouble impacting the Black community. There was Howard Beach in 1986, where three Black men were assaulted by a white mob and one of them, Michael Griffith, was hit by a car and killed trying to escape the brutality. Rev. Al organized a nonviolent protest in which more than 1,200 African Americans marched through the all-white Queens, N.Y. neighborhood protesting the assault and death. Then Bensonhurst happened in 1989. Again, Black youth were assaulted by a white mob and this time, Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old, was killed in the predominantly white Brooklyn community. Rev. Sharpton led a march with Hawkins’ family through the streets of Bensonhurst as an angry white crowd taunted and spat on the marchers. And in 1991, Crown Heights, also in Brooklyn, erupted after 7-year-old Gavin Cato died from injuries sustained when he was hit by a car driven by a Jewish man. Rumors spread throughout the predominately Black and Jewish enclave that the two young Black children pinned by the car received medical care from the driver and passengers in the car. After several days of rioting and clashes between Black youth and Hasidic Jews, Sharpton organized a march through the Hasidic community to protest the death of Cato.

Sharpton’s ability to be at the center of major events that involve racial and social injustices, and his skills of mobilizing people around specific issues, has catapulted him to the national and international stage. In 2001, Rev. Sharpton was arrested for protesting the practice bombings by the U.S. Navy on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, along with nine protesters including political leaders from the Bronx. Other prominent demonstrators who were arrested included: environmental lawyer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; actor, Edward James Olmos; and New York labor leader, Dennis Rivera. The Reverend received the longest sentence, 90 days, for trespassing on the Navy firing range on Vieques. While in prison, Sharpton was visited by the who’s who of politics including Senators from New York Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, as well as civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and the Mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson.

Rev. Al Sharpton has been consistent with his message and commitment to social injustices and does not shy away from the consequences. His support of President Barack Obama has been unflagging and in the interview with talk show host Wendy Williams recently he explained his position. “He [Obama] inherited the worse economy … since the depression. I think the fact that the president was able to come forward and bring this country from the threshold of a real depression ... fought, got healthcare through, the first president to do that, I think he’s done a good job. I’m with him. I think he’s gotten a bad rap … And I’m not one of these fair-weather friends.”

On Saturday, Rev. Sharpton led thousands on a March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. The crowd on the National Mall included members of labor unions, government officials, demonstrators from Occupy D.C., and employed and unemployed Americans. Organized by Sharpton’s National Action Network and partners from labor, education, civil rights and religious organizations, the rally was a platform to bring attention to a wide range of issues impacting Americans including President Obama’s jobs bill which failed passage in the U.S. Senate, the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia and voter identification cards now required by some states at polls.

The march for jobs and justice preceded the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on Sunday, which brought together 10,000 people on the National Mall. President Barack Obama was among the speakers, as was Rev. Al Sharpton. The legacy of Dr. King continues and the methods that he and the leaders of the civil rights struggle employed to change American society reverberates across the globe today — in the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. — (NNPA/The Westchester County Press)

Linda Tarrant-Reid is an author, historian and photographer. Her book, “Discovering Black America: From the Age of Exploration to the Twenty-First Century” will be published in September 2012. Visit her blog at, www.discoverblackus.wordpress.com. Send your comments to Linda Tarrant-Reid, c/o The Westchester County Press, P.O. Box 152, White Plains, N.Y. 10602.

NEW YORK — The Rev. Jesse Jackson is entering the fray over The Recording Academy's cuts to its Grammy categories: He's asking to meet with the president of the organization and has raised the possibility of protests with the awards less than two weeks away.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address and Aretha Franklin will headline the entertainers at this weekend's dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall.

And now it’s Newt?

Why has former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suddenly surged in the polls from near-oblivion to the top tier of Republican presidential hopefuls? Credit short memories in the ABM, the “Anybody but Mitt” movement.

The ABM faction of the Grand Old Party has road-tested so many alternatives to persistently high-scoring former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney that they apparently have forgotten all of the perfectly good reasons why they didn’t go for Gingrich months ago.

After all, the man has baggage, personal and public, of the sort that conservatives would decry in Democrats. Twice divorced, he left his first wife following her treatment for cancer. He left his second wife for a staff member who is now his third wife, Callista. Social conservatives don’t like that.

He’s also viewed by many as ethically challenged, having been the only speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations.

Even right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter vigorously pounces on his electability. “In addition to having an affair in the middle of Clinton’s impeachment; apologizing to Jesse Jackson on behalf of J. C. Watts — one of two Black Republicans then in Congress — for having criticized “poverty pimps,” and then inviting Jackson to a State of the Union address; cutting a global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi; ... appearing in public with the Rev. Al Sharpton to promote nonspecific education reform; and calling Paul Ryan’s plan to save Social Security “right-wing social engineering,” we found out this week that Gingrich was a recipient of Freddie Mac political money.”

Yes, the money from Freddie Mac, which Gingrich claimed during a recent debate to have been for duties as a “historian,” but later turned out to be as a consultant, is particularly damaging politically. Today’s tea party right views the government-sponsored enterprise as Public Enemy No. 1 in the recent housing and economic crisis.

But for now, at least, many conservatives are willing to overlook those negatives. They want someone who not only can unseat President Barack Obama but also promote “authentic” conservative principles.

Despite his occasional joint appearances with liberals, mostly outside of Congress, Gingrich has unquestionably conservative credentials. His “revolution” earned street cred among conservatives as instigator of a partisan divide in Congress that resulted in a government shutdown in 1995 — and persists in today’s gridlock over budget issues.

Gingrich’s resurrection came after recent debates in which he showed the ferocity of a Rottweiler, not against his fellow Republicans but against an all-purpose whipping boy, the “mainstream media.” The ABMs hope Gingrich is a guy who will spank Obama in debates. If nothing else, they long for the entertainment value.

Gingrich happily endorsed that possibility, telling Politico’s Jonathan Martin Thursday in Des Moines, “If we nominate somebody utterly inarticulate, Obama gets a billion dollars, he spends two months smearing the Republican Party with negativity and we have a candidate who can’t debate him, he might pull it off.”

But even debate victory is not a slam-dunk for Gingrich, who himself admits he has an occasional lack of discipline in staying on message. The former college professor loves to talk — and talk. After he denounced Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s radical budget, for example, as “right-wing social engineering,” he famously reversed himself and warned: “Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood.” At least he was thinking ahead.

When actual voting is held, I still agree with the conventional wisdom that Romney has the best chance to win the nomination. His moderate views frustrate the GOP right wing, but the party’s more mainstream voters recognize he has the crossover appeal to win. Recent polls show him beating Obama among independents these days, the always-persuadable group that ultimately decides the winner.

But I’m not writing off Gingrich or anyone else, considering how the conventional wisdom four years ago at this time was predicting victories for Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Real votes, not just polls, will determine how far Republicans have moved to the right and whether ABM anger has a future.

E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.