I think when someone says a politician is for amnesty, he is trying to tag the person as being for blanket amnesty.
I think Newt has made it clear, that there are some people in this country, who have been here over 25 years, (not 10, not 5, not 20), but 25 who should be given a path to legality.
He also says that the immigration issue is one that might be best to deal with as we did with local draft boards.
Newt has a plan on his website. You can call it amnesty, you can call it what you want. Bottom line is that ROmney has distorted the man’s opinion.
The morning after the debate, Gingrich was already swamped with accusations from a wide variety of quarters that he was supporting amnesty, for example, HERE, which is a typical example describing Gingrich's plan as about amnesty ("The plan seeks to break the political deadlock over whether to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants by splitting them into two groups.")
Sorry, but Gingrich knew VERY WELL that when he said what he said, how he said it, when and where he said it, that he was going to have to fend off accusations that his plan amounted to amnesty. He specifically said he was "ready to take the heat for that."
Then when his political opponents brought the heat, instead of accepting responsibility for explaining away the mess he himself made, he wails about how he's being lied about and it's so unfair.
It's not unfair and Gingrich knows it. He PREDICTED that his comments would be viewed as advocating a form of amnesty.
Whether his plan does or does not constitute amnesty is beside the point here. We are talking about political strategies.
Gingrich knowingly and deliberately made it VERY EASY for his opponents, from the minute he said it in that debate and forward (go back and watch the tape and read the threads about AMNESTY here on FR the next day), to characterize his position as allowing illegal immigrants a way to stay in the U.S.
Again, this is precisely what he claimed he was "ready to take the heat for."
Except he wasn't ready to take the heat. And he didn't go out there the day after the debate, and the day after and the day after, and make damn sure that HE explained himself again and again, if necessary.
Saying "Newt has a plan on his website" has zero impact on how politics gets done in the real world.
But the fact is that Gingrich proposed to allow at least some illegal immigrants to stay, be provided a "path to legality," which everyone knows then makes them, just by virtue of being here legally, eligible to apply for citizenship. Please check the voluminous FR threads on these points in the days after he made this proposal. These discussions about amnesty and Newt's proposal were not had by a bunch of Romney supporters; they were based on what NEWT SAID.
Gingrich made this mess and he didn't clean it up. End of story. So he had to pay the piper.
To go from that to crying that his opponents "lied" about the very thing he predicted they would say if he said what he said shows a shocking level of political incompetence (or delusions of grandeur). Gingrich would have been in a much stronger position to have simply said, "I said all along they were going to peg me as an amnesty supporter, but here's how my policy is not amnesty."
As it is: call the whhhhaaaaaaambulance.
Even if you're correct that Gingrich's position has been distorted, blaming this on Romney is a hoot.
Please watch the debate tape where Bachmann (and, I think, one other candidate) immediately said Gingrich's plan amounted to a form of amnesty.
Please google all the hundreds of articles the day after the debate where Gingrich said this that talk about whether his proposal amounts to a form of amnesty.
Please look at the threads on FR the day after the debate where many freepers, who are not Romney supporters, were hotly debating Gingrich's proposal and many saw in it a form of amnesty.
As I said in my previous post, Gingrich made this mess and he looks mighty dumb blaming others for throwing it back at him. Especially after he specifically predicted they would!