As I've said before, Newt Gingrich is problematic in the extreme. For every time he has given a rousing speech full of all the right cadences and forthright expressions of conservative principle, nailing the urgency of the task at hand, he has made wacko moves of the most unsettling kind.
Such as this. I feel like I know a fair amount about his life, but maybe I need to learn more about how his overall worldview was formed. For a guy who professes to be the embodiment of conservatism, he behaves more like a technocratic pragmatist, pulling "American solutions" from whatever corner if they have some sort of wonky appeal for him. Yet most pragmatists don't swaddle their mishmash of policy recommendations in the kind of grandiosity he imparts to most everything. I mean, to say that Romneycare had "the tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system."?
I realize the Iowa caucus is just days away now, and more primaries come on its heels. One of the second-tier candidates (that would be Bachmann, Santorum or Perry) absolutely must make an irreparable dent in the double-digit lock that the three absolutely horrible candidates (Gingrich, Romney and Paul) have on the first tier.
The United States of America cannot survive another hold-our-noses Republican presidential candidate, even if the election produces solid conservative majorities in the House and Senate. The DNC and the MEC machine are well aware of any fresh signs of vulnerability, such as the above-linked item about Gingrich. The MEC cannot run on his record, but he's not particularly worried about it. If, during campaign stops or particularly during one-on-one debates, he has a dossier on his opponent brimming with examples of inconsistency and Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome, he can draw the blood necessary to ensure four more years of "fundamental transformation."
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