Monday, May 16, 2011

Newt Gingrich throws the Ryan plan under the bus

Newt says that the Ryan plan represents a "radical change" and "right-wing social engineering." He also agrees with Obama (and Mitt v 2.0, but not v 3.0) about the fact that individual mandate is a good thing.

Here's a story from the Washington Examiner about the GOP reax.

I can't figure out what Newt thinks he's gaining by this stunt. He's just executed his own nascent campaign, and not a minute too soon, if this is how he's going to conduct himself.

He's actually given countless Democrat candidates an easy ad spot. Imagine the voice over:

John Thune supports the Ryan plan to destroy Medicare as we know it, a plan that is so dangerous that even Newt Gingrich refers to it as "right-wing social engineering" and "radical."

Newt Gingrich is betraying the GOP on the crucial issue of the day (constraining entitlement costs) for some imagined political gain--one that I cannot even imagine what it might be. Gain a few senior voters in FL but lose the entire base?

Bye bye Newt. You were once a great conservative leader.

EDIT: Ross Kaminsky from the American Spectator agrees, saying that Newt disqualified himself from serious consideration as the GOP nominee based on his statements yesterday.

5 comments:

SheaHeyKid said...

He's basically done, which is hard to understand. For a guy who is clearly the most well read, well thought out and articulate of the field, I don't get this. I have a hard time imagining he misspoke, so I can only assume he intentionally took this position.

The question is why, and there's no obvious answer.

The only two possibilities I can consider are: (a) he wanted to do something to distance himself from the GOP pack, or (b) he was never seriously intending to run and wanted to take a position that would help make Romney look better by comparison.

Neither makes sense.

Fredo said...

MSNBC's First Read says Newt's had the roughest campaign roll out ever.

Fredo said...

Definitely not (b). If you caught my tweet, you saw the Brit Hume quote summing up Newt: "a provocative thinker, but a promiscuous talker."

Newt has always been prone to say too much b/c he thinks he's smarter than whoever he's talking too, and it gets him trouble.

Fredo said...

Sad part is, he generally IS smarter than whoever he's talking to, but that's why the Presidency hasn't generally been won by Nobel Laureates and the ivory tower intelligentsia

ManBeast said...

My suspicion on this whole thing is that Newt is too smart or too clever for his own good. Or, maybe his true colors are coming out. Anyway you slice it, he's done.

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Always sniffing for the truth

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