How Newt Gingrich Gets Away With “Class Warfare” and “Race Baiting”
When Rick Perry was still in the presidential race, he angered some conservatives by asserting that if you oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants brought here as kids then “you don’t have a heart.” For normal politicians, it is folly to tell the base a position they hold is heartless.
But Newt Gingrich isn’t a normal politician. He is so expert at signaling tribal identification with conservatives that he can seemingly say or do anything without losing the ability to be competitive. In a past entry, I explained how the conservative movement made such a rise possible. Here I want to cite just one example of the ruinous (for them) dynamic that is beginning to result.
[Here] is a clip from Newt Gingrich’s appearance on Univision on Wednesday. Here’s the transcript:
INTERVIEWER: What do you think of Romney’s idea of self-deportation?
NEWT GINGRICH: I think you have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts — and automatic, you know, $20 million per year income with no work — to have some fantasy this far from reality.
Remember that I talk, very specifically, about people who have been here for a long time. Who are grandmothers and grandfathers who have been paying their bills, they’ve been working, they’re part of the community. Now for Romney to believe that somebody’s grandmother is going to be so cut off that she’s going to self-deport? This is an Obama-level fantasy.
INTERVIEWER: You call him anti-immigrant.
NEWT GINGRICH: Well he certainly shows no concern for the humanity of people who are already here. I mean, I just think the idea that we’re going to deport grandmothers and grandfathers is a sufficient level of inhumanity — first of all it’s never going to happen.
Observations:
1. Isn’t it amazing to see Newt Gingrich soar in a Republican primary even as he asserts that (a) rich guys are so clueless it’s like they live in a fantasy world and (b) investing money and earning a return on it is tantamount to “no work”? Isn’t it stranger still that while saying all this he accuses President Obama of class warfare?
2. Isn’t it amazing that Gingrich can surge in a GOP primary even as he suggests that wanting to deport illegal immigrants is inhumane, even anti-immigrant? His base has a hair-trigger sensitivity to being accused of xenophobia, and supports deporting all illegal immigrants; yet somehow Gingrich gets away with saying this on Univision. Had Jon Huntsman done the same he’d have been excoriated.
3. The idea of self-deportation spurred by better workplace enforcement — the Mitt Romney position — is in fact the mainstream position of illegal-immigration restrictionists, who mostly insist that the specter of mass deportations are a straw man conjured up by the left to scare people. And it is in fact the case that if you make it more difficult for folks without documents to get jobs, many of them will leave, having come here with the express hope of earning American wages.
4. Under Romney’s plan, which is clearly targeted at working-age adults, illegal immigrant grandparents who’ve been here for many years are in fact the least likely people to be bothered, yet Gingrich talks as if they’re the focus of Romney’s plan.
5. Even Gingrich’s demagoguery is inconsistent, for he isn’t willing to affirm that illegal-immigrant grandparents who’ve been here for some time should be given amnesty. He’d instead create a series of citizen panels modeled after the draft boards of the World War II era that would sit in judgment of whether these longtime residents got to stay or go, presumably sending some of them home. I wonder how Gingrich would respond if a debate moderator pointed out that his plan would deport some longtime residents and called him anti-immigrant and inhumane?
This is but one example of what the right can expect so long as Newt Gingrich is around. Because his appeal is grounded in tribal solidarity — because what people like about him is his ability to lash out at the mainstream media, the cultural elite, and President Obama — he can stray from conservative orthodoxy and policy far more than any other candidate and still retain his support. It’s a more extreme version of what happened during the Bush era. Republicans elected the guy with whom they wanted to have a beer, and since they felt in their gut he was one of them, he spent years advancing an agenda that would’ve drawn cries of tyranny had a Democrat tried it.
Gingrich backed that Bush-era agenda. And if he’s elected president expect him to do all sorts of things that conservatives complain about after the fact, when they realize that they’ve been had again.
By: Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, January 25, 2012
The New Republican Revolution: “Fundamentally” Transforming The GOP
Should former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) win the Republican nomination for president, the fiery revolutionary seeking to “fundamentally” transform almost everything will have upended the political system anew. Unlike Gingrich’s successful revolution of 1994, his battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in 2012 might not lead to the White House. But his nomination would overhaul the Grand Old Party, altering it in unexpected and unprecedented ways, and Gingrich would make history once again.
Here’s how:
1. Republicans will no longer belong to the party of order: The long-held tradition of nominating next-in-lines will be broken. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, running for six years, will have been turned out for the unlikeliest candidate — a former congressional leader already rejected and retired by the party with no experience running a presidential campaign. Conservatives, who prize caution, will gamble on a political lightning rod.
2. Town halls and good ground games will be so yesterday: Debates rule, and they helped bring Gingrich back from the political dead. He rocketed to the top of the polls without building a campaign in Iowa or any early states. As he toured the country doing book signings and his documentary screenings he didn’t log the traditional hours on the ground in these places that successful presidential candidates and previous nominees have. Iowans may have insisted on face-time in the past, but Gingrich might well prove that media buzz, social networking sites and stellar performances in nationally televised debates are the new ingredients for winning over voters. 3. Republicans have turned a critical corner on immigration policy: Gingrich’s immigration proposal, to provide longtime, law-abiding illegals with a path to legalization but not citizenship, was expected to sink him. Yet the same Republican voters who scorned Texas Gov. Rick Perry for his willingness to aid illegals seeking a college education in Texas have largely sat quiet over Gingrich’s plan to provide what many hardliners would define as amnesty. If Gingrich becomes the leader of the GOP, the tide will turn on its immigration policy, which could be a huge political problem for Democrats.
4. The revolving door can keep swinging: According to Esquire magazine, in the first half of 2010, before he entered the race, Gingrich’s American Solutions raised more than double the money raised by the Service Employees International Union, making it “the biggest political-advocacy group in America.” His Center for Health Transformation is a for-profit outfit charging fees from healthcare giants, including the largest insurers, of up to $200,000 per year to connect to Gingrich. His $30,000 per month retainer with Freddie Mac proves that highly paid “strategic” advice fattens the wallets of former politicians, whether they call themselves lobbyists or not.
5. Evangelicals will embrace an adulterer: Gingrich polls well with evangelical voters — adultery, divorces and all. Should he win Iowa, and the nomination too, it will be because he won enough of these voters to secure the largest coalition. These voters hate the sin but love the sinner and have moved off of social issues to focus on the economy. And they love Gingrich’s steadfast defense of Israel and tough talk on Iran.
6. Flip-flops are fine for credentialed conservatives: Be it a mandate for healthcare, ethanol subsidies, man’s role in climate change, Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) Medicare reform plan or the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Gingrich has changed his mind on conservative bedrocks. But he is the architect of a conservative victory that brought Republicans back to power after 40 years. Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts.
By: A. B. Stoddard, Associate Editor, The Hill, December 14, 2011
The Problem Isn’t Mitt Romney’s $10,000 Bet Offer. It’s His Serial Dishonesty
One of the biggest pieces of news out of Saturday’s debate is that Mitt Romney offered to bet Rick Perry $10,000 over the latter’s claim that Romney wrote in his book that he viewed the individual mandate as a “model” for the country. Dems and Republicans alike are pouncing on the casual offer of a large wager as proof that Romney is out of touch, and reporters are predicting that this moment could crystallize a national media narrative about Romney.
But while the $10,000 moment is politically problematic and revealing in some ways, it doesn’t really deserve to rise to the level of national narrative. What’s more deserving of a national storyline about Romney is his serial dishonesty, his willingness to say and do anything to win.
This morning, Romney is pushing back on the idea that there was anything amiss about the $10,000 bet offer, arguing that he picked an “outrageous” sum to highlight just how “outrageous” Perry’s claim was. But Perry’s claim — while not completely accurate — wasn’t all that outrageous.
Perry argued that Romney wrote that the individual mandate he passed as governor of Massachusetts “should be the model for the country.” It’s true, as PolitiFact points out, that Romney’s book did also say that such reforms should be implemented at the state level. But Romney has in fact talked about the mandate as a national model: In 2007, he said he hoped that “most” states would adopt it, and added that he hopes to see “a nation that’s taken a mandate approach.” Romney is now trying to obscure the fact that he plainly saw his chief accomplishment as something that should ultimately be adopted on a national, or quasi-national, scale.
More broadly, political reporters and commentators are always tempted to seize on such moments as the $10,000 bet as defining of a candidate’s character. But this moment is ultimately almost as trivial as was John Edwards’ $400 haircut. More important is the broader pattern of dissembling and dishonesty that only begins with his equivocations over the mandate. To wit: Romney attacked Newt Gingrich for opposing mass deportation of longtime illegal residents without saying whether he supports such deportation. Romney continues to insist Obama apologized for America, even though this has been repeatedly proven flatly false. Romney released an ad ripping Obama’s quotes out of context in a highly dishonest way — and the campaign later boasted about the media attention the dishonesty secured. Romney falsely asserted that Obama is “bowing to foreign dictators” — then his campaign later insisted the claim was “metaphorical.” And so on.
This broader pattern is what deserves the status of national narrative about Romney’s character, not some throwaway line about a bet.
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, The Line Plum, December 12, 2011
Is Newt Gingrich Just A More Bombastic Mitt Romney?
The Republican primary voters who continue to cast about for a presidential nominee not named Mitt Romney have lately alit on Newt Gingrich as their newest infatuation. Gingrich has plenty of appealing qualities, chief among them that he’s entertaining. But why, exactly, should conservatives prefer him to Romney?
Going down the list of conservative objections to Romney, every one applies equally, if not more so, to Gingrich.
* Support for health-care mandates:
Romney’s embrace in his Massachusetts health-care reform of a requirement that individuals buy health insurance, which he’s refused to repudiate, is his scarlet letter for many on the right; he says he opposes mandates at the federal level but that the provision was right for Massachusetts and promotes personal responsibility.
Gingrich, for his part, has long been a vigorous supporter of mandates — from the 1990s, when many conservatives championed the idea in opposition to Hillary Clinton’s health-reform proposal, to as recently as 2008, when he wrote in his book Real Change: “We should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond). Meanwhile, we should provide tax credits or subsidize private insurance for the poor.” In a 2007 Des Moines Register op-ed, Gingrich specifically used the dreaded words “individual mandate,” saying, “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance.”
It’s not clear when Gingrich’s position changed to his current vehement rejection of mandates. As recently as May he was speaking favorably about “some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond” — comments that were followed by a hasty retreat the next day: “I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and, I believe, unconstitutional.” In making that statement, Gingrich didn’t explain the dissonance with what he’d said the day before.
* Squishy on abortion:
Romney’s conversion (or flip-flop, depending on your point of view) from pro-choice as a Massachusetts politician to pro-life as a national one is well known. Gingrich has never been vociferously pro-choice, and, unlike Romney, he has now signed the pro-life pledge proffered by the Susan B. Anthony List, which asks candidates to promote anti-abortion legislation, make pro-life appointments and cut off federal funds for abortion providers.
But — as social-conservative purists like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann have lately been pointing out — in his days as the leader of a resurgent House GOP, Gingrich advocated a big tent. In 1990, for example, he said that rather than being strict abortion prohibitionists, the Republican Party ought to “be the party that on balance prefers the fewest abortions possible.” He supported some taxpayer funding of abortion, a stance that his campaign now says he has reversed.
* Squishy on immigration:
In the last debate, Gingrich made an emotional argument in favor of some sort of legalization process for some illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S., particularly those brought to the country as children. The resulting dust-up revealed that Romney’s stance, beneath his many evasions, isn’t materially different: He’d rather talk about securing the border, he doesn’t want lawbreakers to get special treatment, but he also is not in favor of mass deportation. In 2006, he told Bloomberg that he would not have illegal immigrants “rounded up and box-carred out.”
If immigration hawks are looking for a candidate who’ll take a tougher stance than Romney, though, Gingrich’s line in the debate showed he’s not their man. “I’m prepared to take the heat for saying, ‘Let’s be humane in enforcing the law, without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families,'” he said.
* Generally squishy — a flip-flopper:
This is the main knock on Romney, from left and right alike — that he changes his positions based on political expediency. While few politicians with long careers have been absolutely consistent, Gingrich has an especially rich history of reversing himself when something he said proved to be unpopular.
To take just a couple of recent examples, in 2008, when being “green” was fashionable, Gingrich recorded a television commercial for an Al Gore project in which he sat on a loveseat with Nancy Pelosi and declared, “We do agree our country must take action to address climate change.” Now that he’s running in a GOP primary that’s hostile to environmental regulation, he’s skeptical that anything needs to be done.
Earlier this year, when the Obama administration hadn’t taken action on the violence breaking out in Libya, Gingrich called for immediate imposition of a no-fly zone. When the administration took his advice, though, he was against it: “I would not have intervened,” he said. As one of his critics noted at the time, it was hard to see this swift reversal as anything other than blind partisanship — knee-jerk opposition to Obama’s stance, regardless of its policy merits.
Gingrich has basically admitted this was the reason for his reversal on health-care mandates: In the 1990s, he told the New Hampshire Union Leader, the individual mandate “was designed to block Hillarycare.” Yet Gingrich maintains that Romney’s flip-flops are objectionable because they were for political reasons, while his have been authentic changes of heart: “I wouldn’t switch my positions for political reasons,” he said recently. “It’s perfectly reasonable to change your position if … you see new things you didn’t see.”
* Not all that conservative, deep down:
Many conservatives suspect that no matter how many conservative positions Romney espouses, deep in his heart he’s just not one of them. It’s a sense based on his record, his current policy proposals (such as an economic plan that gives suspicious emphasis to relief for the middle class), and his general tone and temperament. But Gingrich’s record is hardly that of a right-wing crusader.
The 1994 takeover of the House Gingrich engineered was an enormous victory for the Republican Party, one for which Gingrich is still justly revered in GOP ranks. But he didn’t do it by enforcing conservatism — he couldn’t have. Much of the “Contract With America” — which was, after all, designed to appeal to swing voters — was technocratic. For the landmark achievements he still touts, welfare reform and balancing the budget, Gingrich worked arm in arm — and compromised — with Bill Clinton.
This year, shortly after launching his candidacy, Gingrich didn’t win many Republican friends when he blasted the House Republican budget proposal drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as “right-wing social engineering.” As Ryan said at the time, “With allies like that, who needs the left?” Gingrich quickly repented and now says, “Paul Ryan came up with some very good ideas.” But there’s ample reason to question the true colors of a politician who, early in his career, was a state chairman for the presidential campaign of Nelson Rockefeller — the emblem of liberal Republicanism that sought to halt the rise of conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. In a 1989 interview, Gingrich called this “the classic moderate wing of the party,” and said it was where he had “spent most of my life.”
So why are the anti-Romney conservatives flocking to Gingrich?
In conversations with Republicans — some Gingrich backers, some not — about why he’s more appealing than Romney, most acknowledge it basically comes down to style. Gingrich’s tone is that of an angry crusader, unlike Romney’s placid assurance. And because Gingrich has such a penchant to say whatever comes into his head, his inconsistencies tend to get chalked up to a lack of discipline rather than cold calculation.
As the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis put it:
Gingrich and Romney couldn’t be more different. Gingrich questions authority, challenges conventional wisdom, and disputes premises. He also has fun. He is winsome. He can be undisciplined. He enjoys politics, and seems to gain energy from engaging in the battles. Romney, on the other hand, is a consummate “adult.” He is highly disciplined. He plays by the rules, accepts reality as it is, and then — within those confines — sets about fixing things as best he can.
It’s also true that if Gingrich and Romney really are so similar on paper, voters might as well pick Gingrich. Perhaps that’s why Romney’s camp sees Gingrich as a threat and will seek to highlight the former speaker’s personal baggage.
But as Gingrich’s current surge enters the closer-inspection phase, many conservatives may discover their infatuation with him is based on equal parts bluster and mythology. In the words of conservative guru Erick Erickson, the RedState.com founder: “The conservative warrior people tend to think Gingrich is, often is not.”
By: Molly Ball, The Atlantic, December 1, 2011
Distilling Mitt Romney’s Position On Immigration
Former Gov. Mitt Romney underwent a tough and fair interview with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier.
Romney seemed particularly, well, Romneyesque on immigration.
The confusion stems from the fact that, between 2005 and 2007, Romney gave every indication of supporting something like President Bush’s reform proposal: a system whereby illegal immigrants “come out of the shadows” and to the “back of the line” of the citizenship application process.
In 2006, the Associated Press was apparently unclear enough on Romney’s position to write this:
Meantime, one of McCain’s potential rivals for the GOP nomination, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has made it known that he supports the president’s immigration position, saying that Republicans who have broken rank with Bush “made a big mistake.”
The same year, Romney said, “I don’t believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country.”
He called elements of the Senate bill sponsored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy “reasonable proposals.”
As seems undeniable, Romney took a hard line on illegals when he decided to run for president. That much we know. But I’m still trying to suss out how, precisely, he threads the needle. In the interview with Fox’s Baier, Romney insisted that illegal immigrants who come forward must park themselves in the “back of the line,” behind those who’ve come here legally.
But this was a central feature of both the Bush plan and McCain-Kennedy plan, which was praised by business types as well as conservative activists like Linda Chavez, Grover Norquist and Jack Kemp.
The Weekly Standard‘s Fred Barnes wrote of the Bush plan:
Earned citizenship would permit the 12 million immigrants living illegally in the Unites States to apply for citizenship. They would be required to work for six years, commit no crimes, pay back taxes, and learn English. Then and only then could they get in line to become citizens [emphasis mine], a process that takes five years.
As far as I can tell, Romney found the thinnest of the reeds on which to lean his newfound opposition to the McCain-Kennedy bill: that it would allow immigrants to collect Social Security benefits they’d amassed while working here illegally.
Does Romney really expect anybody to swallow that?
By: Scott Galupo, U. S. News and World Report, November 30, 2011
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