Leaning Left 12/15/2011

Leaning Left

Jim Fitzgerald

The latest GOP Presidential candidate de jour seems to be Newt Gingrich, showing just how desperate the GOP is at this point in the election cycle. These voters are running from Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum who seem more obsessed with stuffing gays back in the closet than they are focused on jobs. The voters had little choice but to run from Cain, who’s apparent past behaviors mocked the party of family-values.

Oddly, they also seem to be running from Romney, whom they see as too moderate, and toward Gingrich, whom they see as deeply conservative. However, anyone who thinks Newt is deeply conservative or a poster boy for family-values is not paying attention to his actions and words. They seem so desperate they are grasping at straws.

Romney is the antithesis of Gingrich in terms of character, temperament, and family-values; none of these qualities are found in Newt. What Romney and Gingrich have in common is that they are flip-floppers. Both attempt to reinvent themselves depending on which way the wind is blowing. However, this column is not to compare and contrast these two candidates but to highlight some of Newt’s positions that shift as fast, and sometimes faster, than the wind.

Do you remember when Newt was interviewed by David Gregory on Meet the Press last May? Yes, I mean May of 2011. He referred to Ryan’s dismantling of Medicare as “radical change,” “too big a jump,” and “right-wing social engineering” before flip-flopping and saying he would vote for the plan two weeks later. To make matters worse, which seems to be his trait, he intimated that Gregory had tricked him, not a flattering picture of a man who wants to be the leader of the free world. What he did was speak his beliefs but after discovering they were unpopular, he compounded his problem by projecting blame on Gregory and then had the audacity to say, “Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.” First he was easily “tricked” and then he acknowledges lying?  His words are on video! Even Ryan said, “With allies like that, who needs the left?”

But let’s look at an issue that really upsets the right – the individual mandate to purchase insurance. That was Newt’s idea in 1993 when he said Americans should be required to have health insurance, not unlike the requirement to have car insurance. Should someone not purchase health insurance, he wanted them required to post a bond. He, like Romney, really splits hairs when he says it should be the state that requires it! In short, Newt wants people to be forced into buying health insurance. His rationale is the same as the Democrats, who borrowed the idea from him. Newt said, “Most Republicans voters agree with the principle that people have some responsibility to pay for their costs.”

Newt continues to support the individual mandate (May, 2011). Debbie Dooley, state coordinator of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots is quoted as saying, “I’d like Speaker Gingrich to show me in the Constitution where the government has the right to force people to buy health insurance. That’s going to hurt him among Tea Party activists, extremely.” Expect Newt to flip on this issue.

Space does not allow me to expand on Newt’s political instability but suffice it to say, he was for and against the carbon tax credit and climate change, intervention in Libya, American influence on the new Iraq government, and made millions through close ties to Freddie and Fannie Mac. Newt supports the uses of czars (for avian flu, hurricanes) while his proposals to deal with illegal immigration go against the GOP’s stance. Ron Paul calls him a “serial hypocrite” while a Wall Street journalist says he is “intellectually promiscuous.” What a choice he would make for President!

Last week some businessmen, Republicans, on a financial channel were discussing the upcoming election and all were in agreement that Obama was going to be re-elected. Furthermore, they were in agreement that Obama has been good for the markets and the economy. These wealthy Republicans (CEO, private equity owners) said that companies are optimistic about the recovering economy and their financial future. A recovering economy and the GOP struggle to find a candidate that reflects their views does not hurt Obama’s chances either.