Gingrich super PAC spokesman: Santorum ‘might win if he could speak English’

WashPo ^ | 2-29-11 | Sonmez

[VinL]

A campaign that’s already seen its fair share of sharp attacks took a novel turn Wednesday morning when the spokesman for a super PAC backing former House speaker Newt Gingrich took aim at former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s ability to speak the English language.

Speaking on MSNBC’s Jansing & Co., Rick Tyler said that the outcome of last night’s primaries in Arizona and Michigan gave Gingrich an opening.

“Rick Santorum failed to win, but Mitt Romney failed to inspire,” Tyler said. “Rick Santorum might win if he could speak English.”

Tyler is a senior adviser to “Winning our Future,” the super PAC backing Gingrich.

It wasn’t immediately clear what his remarks were in reference to. They might have been intended as a jab at recent provocative comments made by Santorum on the campaign trail, such as his statement that John F. Kennedy’s 1960 religion speech made him want to “throw up.”

A Santorum spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement.

It’s not the first time in this campaign that someone associated with a super PAC has made a potentially problematic comment. Foster Friess, a millionaire donor to a pro-Santorum group, outraged women’s groups when he made a joke about aspirin being used for contraception. Santorum quickly disassociated himself from the remark.

[VinL]

Well, turnabout is fair play.

After Fla, Rick wouldn't drop for the sake of conservatives. Instead, he ran negative ads against Newt-- and thereby, he ultimately won the majority of the anti-Romney vote.

During this time, Newt didn't go negative against Rick. Newt allowed him to confront Mitt one on one. Rick lost.

Now, I think it's proper for Newt to distinguish himself from Rick- and reclaim his rightful place- conservative frontrunner.

Newt will rise again.

[taildragger]

They have read Alinksy...Remember focus and make fun of...Little Ricky is now in the hot seat..

[VanDeKoik]

Exactly.

No more free ride for Santo.

[petercooper]

Santorum is a loser.

[BibChr]

If he only heard Santorum guest-host Bill Bennett’s radio show, I’d completely understand. HORRIBLE host. “Uh um um-um-um... ahhh... Th-th-that was, um...” HORRIBLE.

Better speaker. TERRIBLE talk show host.

[dforest]

Newt is very articulate as long as he is speaking out of the RIGHT side of his mouth.

The question is, would he continue to do so, or will the left side take over once elected? There is no telling.

By the way, the combined totals of Newt’s and Rick’s Florida votes was not enough to overtake Romney. So it appears that Santorum was wise to ignore Newt’s call to drop out.

I don’t consider Newts prior flirtations with Cap and Trade, including plopping down on the sofa with Nancy, plus healthcare mandates as, elevation to the top of the 2012 consertvtive heap.

Not to mention all the other baggage Newt carries with him.

[nickcarraway]

So Italians and Irish are no longer welcome in the U.S., according to Gingrich’s people?

[erkelly]

Newt in office only acts and “speaks out of the right side of his mouth.” A left-voting RINO he never ever was. You, on the other hand, don't seem to be aware of just how important and effective Speaker Gingrich was as the creator of the Contract with the America leading to the Republican majorities in congress for many years after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.

[22cal]

Flirtations with big labor don't count? Voting for all the GWB big government programs don't count?

Come on now. You have a flawed candidate, too. And he is inarticulate compared to Newt.

Newt knows the Constitution. I think he sees the need to follow it and remove much of our current burden.

Definitive Speech on America No Matter Who Your Candidate Is

[Vendome]

That’s just stoopid.

These bozo’s and I am including Newt, for this example need to focus on who their opponents are:

Obama
Mitt

Get rid of those two and then you can slug it out between Rick and Newt.

[dforest]

I don’t deny that when Newt 1st began, he did the job. But that was then. A lot of water has went over that dam.

He also got himself ousted out of the Speaker role and has been drifting left on too many things in the past years.

I don’t think Newt’s problem is what he says now regarding policy, but it has a lot to do with his past behavior.

One you lose trust, it is harder to convince people.

[Vendome]

Record of Accomplishment and New Imperative to Return America to that Shinning City on a Hill

Well......

That's where a record comes in. Not just the record of votes, which is often a meaningless toll of positions taken for political reasons on bills that were always going to pass or were never going to pass, but a record of actions taken that actually mattered.

A record of actions taken that actually mattered.  Newt is the man who fits that description to a "T".

He can identify what is most important to the country, develop a plan to overcome that challenge, articulate the the merits of overcoming the challenge and why the plan will work.

I hadn't been for Gingrich initially and spent plenty of energy excoriating him, these last several years, for any number of sins he committed against the Republican/Conservative ideals.  He seemed a turncoat of sorts, particularly when he babysat Pelosi on the couch.

On reflection, Newt is an attention whore seeking relevancy for his ideas and I guess I take him at his word that he made a few mistakes in his life and he has at least some regret for those decisions.  God knows I am no angel and so I have to reflect on the man's ability to get things done.

Newt gave us the Republican majority, the Contract with America and completed 2/3rds of his agenda while in office.

He now has a new plan for America and with what is likely to become a Congressional Super Majority and a Senate Majority, if not Super Majority, I believe he will absolutely accomplish his agenda.

Say goodbye to ObamaCare the single biggest scam and travesty foisted upon a free people who, by right, ought to have been given the opportunity to read the bill and debate it.  Instead, a win at all cost, cheating agenda was developed and it was signed with most people never laying eyes on at least page 2 of this utopian dreck.

Executive Orders Positions:

The following are all within the executive powers to simply order and with the exception of securing the border within one year, they are all easily accomplished with the stroke of a pen and no way to challenge them in the legislature.

Keystone may be challenged in the courts but I think the Executive can order the EPA to approve, under National Security Priorities and it is a National Security issue, as well, a jobs issue.

As President, Newt, could actually have a very busy 1st week or month just on these initiative alone.

1. Eliminate the thirty-nine White House "Czar" positions created during the current administration. The president does not have the authority to appoint bureaucrats to power who are not accountable to the Congress.

2. "Mexico City Policy" of Respect for Life. Reauthorize President Ronald Reagan’s policy – also known as the "Mexico City Policy"— to stop tax payer dollars from being used to fund or promote abortions in foreign countries.

3. Restore conscience clause protections for Healthcare Workers.No American working in a medical environment should be forced to perform any procedure that he or she finds morally or ethically objectionable based on religious teaching. This protection should include, but not be limited to abortion. Existing conscience clause protections need to be strengthened.

4. Respect Each Sovereign Nation’s Choice of its Capital. Each sovereign nation, under international law and custom, may designate its own Capital. Accordingly, the U.S. State Department should be instructed to respect the choice of each sovereign nation and place the American embassy in their Capital.  (Israel is the only country the United States discriminates against in this regard. The people of Israel have designated Jerusalem as their capital. Yet the United States retains its embassy in Tel Aviv.) 

5. End the Attorney General's Assault on the States. Instruct the Attorney General to withdraw all immigration-related lawsuits against states immediately, including those pending in Arizona and South Carolina. The Obama Administration refuses to enforce federal immigration laws, and instead sues states who are merely trying to enforce the laws that the federal government neglects. The Gingrich Administration will secure the border by Jan. 1, 2014 by any means necessary. 

6. The Keystone Pipeline

Unleash American Energy by Approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. Instruct the State Department to approve a Presidential Permit immediately for the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that will send 700,000 barrels of oil a day from Great Plains and Southwestern states to Gulf Coast refineries lower staggering energy prices, and create up to 120,000 American jobs.

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS

 Now we get into the details of an inclusive agenda that brings the people(you and me), through their representatives, into process.  The TEA Party and conservatives are going to have a majority in both houses.

Let’s elect an Executive who will absolutely fulfill the promise of our ideals.

Executive Summary

1. Repeal Obamacare and pass a replacement that saves lives and money by empowering patients and doctors, not bureaucrats and politicians.
2. Return to robust job creation with a bold set of tax cuts and regulatory reforms that will free American entrepreneurs to invest and hire, as well as by reforming the Federal Reserve and creating a training requirement for extended federal unemployment benefits to encourage work and improve the quality of our workforce.
3. Unleash America’s full energy production potential in oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, nuclear oil shale and more, creating jobs,  stimulating a sustainable manufacturing boom, lowering gasoline and other energy prices, increasing government revenues, and bolstering national security.
4. Save Medicare and Social Security by giving Americans more choices and tools to live longer, healthier lives with greater financial independence.
5. Balance the federal budget by freeing job-creators to grow the economy, reforming entitlements, and implementing waste cutting and productivity improvement systems such as Lean Six Sigma to eliminate waste and fraud. Pass a balanced budget amendment to keep it balanced.
6. Control the border by January 1, 2014 and establish English as the official language of government; reform the legal visa system, and make it much easier to deport criminals and gang members while making it easier for law abiding visitors to come to the US.
7. Revitalize our national security system to meet 21st century threats by restructuring and adequately funding our security agencies to function within a grand strategy for victory over those who seek to kill us or limit American power.
8. Maximize the speed and impact of medical breakthroughs by removing unnecessary obstacles that block new treatments from reaching patients and emphasizing research spending towards urgent national priorities, like brain science with its impact on Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson's, mental health and other conditions knowledge of the brain will help solve. 
9. Restore the proper role of the judicial branch by using the clearly delineated powers available to the president and Congress to correct, limit, or replace judges who violate the Constitution.
10. Enforce the Tenth Amendment by starting an orderly transfer of power and responsibility from the federal government back “to the states, respectively, or to the people,” as the Constitution requires. Over the next year, state and local officials and citizens will be asked to identify the areas which can be transferred back home.    

Newt gave us the three most important victories of the 90’s Welfare Reform, Balanced Budget and Reduced Taxes.  I hope I don’t need to describe the benefits of those victories.  They ought to be obvious to everyone by now.

Lastly, there have been some reports that Newt shouldn’t get all the credit.  Really?  Then perhaps we marginalize the accomplishments of Washington, Roosevelt, Kennedy and ….wait for it… Reagan.

Do we really want to go down the road with that kind of adolescent sophistry and parsing of what happened?

Newt is the guy who thought of these big things, proposed them and shepherded their implementation?

Newt has once again identified what is important to us now, at this time and described how we can get there with our representative majorities. He has done it before and I declare Newt Gingrich was then and is Now a leader.

We should elect Newt Gingrich to the Presidency of the United States

[dforest]

I would very much prefer it if it returned to that Shining City On A Hill.

Shinning cities don’t do a lot for me;)

[sodpoodle]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[JediJones]

Rick Tyler is a real pro. He’s been great in his TV appearances. Even when he was getting grilled on some inconsistencies in the Bain Capital film his Super PAC purchased, he kept a totally unflappable, deadpan look on his face and said the exact, perfect, nuanced answer to get away from the accusation.

Newt has explained even in recent speeches how in his college professor days, he was fascinated by a lot of environmental theories that sounded brilliant until years later he found out none of them were true. Even Obama with a Democrat Congress couldn’t pass cap-and-trade, so it is a totally dead issue and meaningless issue now.

Likewise, the public has decided where they stand on the health care mandate and it’s a done and over issue. Newt has said he will repeal Obamacare on day one and outlined his plan that includes no mandates.

Both of those are side issues that don’t go to the core of conservatism at all, which is low taxes, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, strong military, anti-welfare, anti-socialism. If a health care mandate ever became a conservative litmus test, it was only after Obamacare passed. Where someone stood on an issue like that or global warming in the past simply don’t define who is conservative or not, because it was only in recent years that those issues got hashed out and decided upon.

[hosepipe]

Santo and Willard are owned by the UNions..
LIKE; whats his name.... not Newt.. the other guy running for President?...

[JediJones]

He was ousted for virtually the same reason Sarah Palin was...constant attacks by left-wingers and the media draining the party’s resources and time. The party threw him under the bus as Speaker hoping to appease the left. It didn’t work. We got “Bush lied, people died” in return.

The Republicans didn’t have a clue how radical, unprincipled and uncompromising the left was becoming in the ‘90s and up to today. The media likes to go on and on about how we’re more polarized than ever. What they don’t tell you was that it’s all because the left decided to go scorched earth on conservatives in the ‘90s. We got control of talk radio, got FOX News, Drudge, the internet, etc. and finally had a fair, level playing field to play on. They knew they couldn’t win in a fair fight, so they started the war we’re still in now, and Newt was one of the first big targets.

Almost every quote or accusation about Newt “going left” is trumped up nonsense, no matter what time period they come from. He didn’t move to the right as fast as some did on climate change and the mandate, but he eventually got there. Those were positions the movement as a whole only arrived at in recent years. A conservative in the ‘80s would have never even heard about those issues.

[VinL]

dforest, you continue to engage in the negative ads.

I don’t- If I did, I could create my own negative litany as to your favored candidate— but I won’t.

Newt’s conduct in masterminding the 1994 takeover from the 40 yr Dem rule, and his authorship of the Contract wt America is a matter of record. There is nothing in his governing record that suggests anything liberal.

Based on his past deeds when in power, I’m confident that Newt will re-direct the country back towards American constitutionalism in 2013-

[onyx]

B T T T ! ! ! ©

[annieokie]

Let me carry that baggage for Newt for awhile, you must be getting tired of hauling it around.