printRudderless and clueless: That’s Newt Gingrich. First he got fired up over the fact of firing in the private sector, attacking “Mitt Romney for what are the prerogatives of private property and the fiduciary duty of a CEO managing private property to fire workers when necessary.”
Now Newt is raging against Romney’s decision, taken in 2003, to veto “a $600,000 expenditure while he was Massachusetts governor that would have paid for kosher meals for seniors in nursing homes on Medicaid, the New York Post reported last week.”
In Gingrich we have someone who professes to champion limited, constitutional government. At the same time, he attacks his opponent because of that opponent’s failure to approve a welfare program. Newt’s attacks, moreover, are almost intuitive and without second thought.
This tells you how foreign the idea of limited government is to Newt Gingrich.
Statism is second nature to Newt.
Other than that, Gingrich happens to be a particularly smug gas bag.
While Romney should not be upbraided for refusing to fleece taxpayers for a special constituency, Romney’s background is replete with similar unkosher statist instincts. For example, “a decision Romney made in 2005 that said all hospitals in the state were required to provide the Plan B birth control pill under Medicaid. At the time, Romney said the decision was made based on legal advice from a state attorney, according to Globe coverage of the issue.”
Although, the above does sound like a legal decision, driven perhaps by fears of courts challenges and law-suits.
It’s possible that Mitt was mortified at the likely possibility that Massachusetts women would “spontaneously” “contract” Tourettes and other twitches should the state deign to deprive them of their God-given right to contraceptives.
Today’s candidates are like the question; “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” There is no way one can justify anything; simply because you are bound to have made an error somewhere and since we have so many opinions, someone is bound to disagree with something in a candidate’s past. Romney has some good points, Newt probably does too; however, both have screwed up more than once too and people are going to have to make a decision. I haven’t found one thing that I can fault Ron Paul on; however, there are a thousand; nay, millions that have found fault with everything he’s done. None the less for me, it’s Ron or None!
I was listening to Peter Schiff’s radio program a few weeks ago. He played an excerpt of Gingrich saying that Franklin Roosevelt was the greatest president we ever had. That was enough evidence for me. It is plainly obvious to anyone that this man is a statist. He is conning a lot of republicans.
Our choices: Barack, Newt or Mitt. We are so doomed.
Suddenly expatriation is looking quite appealing.
I echo what Robert said. I would say that I disagree with Ron Paul’s characterization of Islam and what motivates their anger. At the same time, I still share his principles of cutting back on military adventurism and warfare.
But, if one were to choose between the other (R)’s — merely as a parlor game — where would a classical liberal go? Assuming a vote was called for
My endgame involves the greatest increase in liberty and personal freedoms, the greatest reduction in statism, and the (R) who could lay the groundwork for, for example, a Rand Paul in the next 10-12 years. By then, Rand may not be perfect (he’s hardly perfect now), but that would be the ideal, assuming a Ron Paul presidency isn’t going to happen.
I think Mitt Romney, moreso than the other two, would represent death for the better aspects of the early Tea Party movement and this revival of interest over the past 2-3 years in the constitution and a sound monetary policy. With Gingrich and Santorum the Tea Party would still matter, they’d still be in play, and the potential would still exist to sway minds away from the GOP establishment which has had Romney’s back.
Well, as today’s Florida results show, Newt’s pandering to this and that entitlement group did him no good. And Ron Paul @c.7%. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that RP’s vote is the internet crowd (he ALWAYS wins on the polls at Drudge…) + idealistic students + crossovers. Not regular Republicans, who these days are mostly government-addicted corporate-libs (Romney) and warloving neo-cons (Gingrich). The US polity is as disfunctional as the US economy, and neither can be fixed short of a complete breakdown.
I think of Churchill’s famous line about aiding Stalin “If Hitler invaded hell…I would make favorable reference to the devil” when I watch Newt going after Romney for having a (gasp) Swiss bank account!!! Both are statists but Romney is a patrician who inherited the Presidential bug from his dad while Newt has always been a bomb-throwing demagogue.
Why do people hate Newt from the get go? “It saves them time” said Bob Dole!
In Florida, “Tea Party supporters” went 41% Romney, 37% Gingrich, 16% Santorum, and 6% Paul – this is just more of what I see of ideological mush – “conservatives” or “Tea Party” people who vote for those who expand big government. And given that ideological mush, what becomes of the objection to Obama then?? Wasting money on health or education seems to be more practical than wasting that amount propping up Karzai or setting up Lunar colonies!
Here is a Gingrich who made $ 50 million in a decade “consulting” for government contractors and governmental entities parading as a Washington outsider and a “true conservative”. He almost makes Obama look like an honest man. I guess statist slime is to be judged on a “relative” scale.