Posted on 02/09/2012 12:32:36 PM PST by VinL
ledging to run a "national campaign" and denying he faces a do-or-die "Alamo" moment in Texas -- whose April 3 primary will award 155 delegates -- Newt Gingrich accused newly minted frontrunner Rick Santorum of being a "Big Labor Republican" who has attacked the Tea Party and amassed a voting record conservatives will find "dubious."
In an impromptu interview at the Fox News Washington bureau, the former House speaker claimed Santorum's clean sweep of this week's nominating contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri shows that the Republican presidential primary is a "wide open race" he can still win. Asked if Santorum's ascendancy deprives Gingrich's own candidacy of oxygen, Gingrich maintained that he appeals to a wider and deeper constituency in the GOP electorate.
"Among Tea Party members, I have a much stronger following than Rick does. And they understand that it's principled and that I am supportive of the Tea Parties; I am not attacking them, as he did," Gingrich said.
His campaign cited a 2011 video, now circulating online, in which Santorum can be heard telling an audience in Harrisburg he has "real concerns" about efforts by the Tea Party to refashion conservatism, and added that he planned to "vocally and publicly oppose it."
But Gingrich didn't stop there. While calling Santorum a friend,
(Excerpt) Read more at politics.blogs.foxnews.com ...
I agree, Santorum is a lightweight. Too many people are satisfied by what he says he believes. The ability to get things done is not so apparent.
Bottom line, Santorum can’t win in November because there is only the scantiest of evidence of leadership in him. He comes off like a guy who can’t blow his own nose without resorting to a bottle of nose drops, and there’s nothing in his history to reassure us otherwise.
There went all your current and future credibility.
Now that California is open primary, Mitt can swipe the country’s biggest block of delegates with Democrap crossovers.
If it looks like Newt needs the delegates, maybe Perry will have time to get TX set up as winner-take-all. :)
I’m judging by the exit polls. They showed that voters voted for the candidate that was close to their ideology. As I recall, Newt won with conservatives, but Mitt won with the moderates. Not saying every state went down that way, just NH and FL.
I will not click on that jerk Rosen’s blog. He is on my bad list ever since he did a piece on Brett’s show about 2 weeks ago in which he basically said that Saul Alinksky was a good guy.
All, behold the typical Santorum supporter (it's rich hearing him complain about about "destructive, negative" actions of Gingrich!!! LOL!). You can tell a lot about a candidate by the behaviour of his supporters. Though to Santorum's credit, not ALL of his supporters are as weak and emotional as no dems is in the post copied above, though I'd say many are, whereas Newt's contingent, at least on FR, is mostly represented (with some exceptions) by folks with deeper and more carefully thought conclusions as to why they reject Santorum and support Newt.
GODSPEED NEWT GINGRICH.
What A Big Government Conservative Looks Like
NEA
Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.
Bankruptcy
Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Defense and Foreign Policy
Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.
Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.
Voted for the START II Treaty.
Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.
Voted to ban anti-personnel landmines.
Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.
Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same pay raises as uniformed military.
Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyrannical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.
Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea.
Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.
Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.
Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program.
Nominations
Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture).
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge.
Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN.
Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge.
Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit.
Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge.
Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge.
Voted for James Brady to be District Judge.
Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act.
Voted against repeal of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages.
Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor.
Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding.
Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Voted for Job Corps funding.
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization.
Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.
Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here.
Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.
Voted to exempt IRS union representatives from criminal ethics laws.
Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.
Guns
Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.
Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device.
Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18.
Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools.
Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.
Reform
Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.
Voted twice for a Congressional pay raise.
Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapists, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.
Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.
Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.
Voted for a McCain amendment to require state and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.
Immigration
Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators.
Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens.
Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to the earnings of their sponsors.
Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border patrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.
Taxes
Voted against a flat tax.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.
Voted twice for internet taxes.
Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.
Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.
Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.
Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.
Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.
Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.
Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.
Welfare
Voted against food stamp reform.
Voted against Medicaid reform.
Voted against TANF reform.
Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion.
Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.
Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.
Waste
Sponsored an amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million.
Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA).
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion.
Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.
Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million.
Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL).
Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry.
Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation.
Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.
Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%.
Voted against transferring $20 million from AmeriCorps to veterans.
Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.
Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.
Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.
Spending and Entitlements
Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies a new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.
Health Care
Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.
Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.
Voted against allowing consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.
Education
Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing.
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.
Energy
Voted to allow the President to designate certain sites as interim nuclear waste storage sites in the event that he determines that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site for a permanent waste repository. Those sites are as follows: the nuclear waste site in Hanford, Washington; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Barnwell County, South Carolina; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
Voted to make fuel price gouging a Federal crime.
I doubt that the GOPee attack machine will do much against Rick
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Good point- you may be right.
You guys only condemn Gingrich when he is forced to counter the unfair attacks from Romney and Santorum, but remain silent when those 2 started the unfair attacks.
Remember Gingrich called for a clean campaign but Romney started it visciously, and Santorum took advantage of it to jab at Gingrich unprovoked!
It is impossible to turn the other cheeks in a political campaign. Romney’s viscious attacks sank Ginrich until Gingrich fights back. Now Santorum starts it and you guys are all over Gingrich.
It is like Gingrich is the step-child!
There is also this thing called “PRESIDENTIAL MENTAL ACUMEN” ‘whether Sanctimonium has it or not is a very open question.’ He does, however, exhibit extreme “CANDIDATE DELUSION”, like when he tells a group of supporters, “God called me to run.”
Here’s a video of RS talking about the TEA Party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KEeHDCsetLc
I share your feelings about FR and being a sanctuary of sorts for Newt supporters, despite the occasional inbound...
I have been working very hard for Newt whenever I can, which means I am sometimes - if I am lucky - submerged in his appearances statements just to develop ammo - and one of the many really upsetting things to me about Sanctimonium is more than half of the stuff he says, Newt said first and earlier... not just when they converge on opinions, but direct quotes from Newt, and most people who are hearing Tricky Ricky for the first time, and haven’t followed Gingrich closely, assume they are his original ideas... it really bothers me, especially when Tricky is considered the pure candidate..
as far as your news fast, I still listen to Levin, and when I am in my office I have CNN on mute, in case Newt shows up... other than that try the Cartoon Channel and Food Network... Chopped! is the bomb!
As a resident of PA, I can say it’s definitely not “liberal”. Newt had his chance and he blew it.
Newt blew it and is flailing. He and Rick are BOTH true conservatives and INFINITELY better than Romney!
Newt has two major fundamental problems going forward. He rose to the top based on his ability to debate and his policy wonk abilities relating to fixing our problems. He lost his luster as a debater in FL with two lousy performances and he is no longer appearing to be a policy wonk while he is engaging in attack politics. Because he is no longer playing to his own strengths, he appears to be nothing but a tired old pol past his prime.
I honestly think Newt would have done better if he had stayed on message with solutions to our problems and ignored Romney.
First thing would be to put the military on the U.S. border and deport all illegals as Eisenhower did.
2. Get rid of the Income tax and IRS. Replace them with tariffs as was the case for all of the 1800’s when America became a world power.
3.Put quotas on China products . Phase out importing from other countries so that we can have our industries back and make things in the U.S.A. again
4. Reduce regulations on businesses, and get rid of the EPA.
many more
Your standard for “conservative” must be different than mine.
Santorum is like one of us here, but with senate experience. Seriously, maybe he is one of us. I believe he is the kind of guy who doesn’t puff himself up but who rises to the occasion.
I like you Newt, but my tagline is how I feel about conservatives attacking conservatives. Your prime target is Obama and Romney. If you target those two, you’ll get my vote....if Rick is capable of effectively targeting those two and build up some sort of organization, then it’s him.
I’m flexible within reason. No to Mitt or Obama.
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