You took one line from my post out of context and have created a straw man argument. I clearly said that Newt Gingrich deserved a great deal of credit, but he's claiming more than he deserves.
Welfare reform had huge popular support. If I remember correctly, welfare reform had about 80% popular support. While this legislation was good, pushing through a bill with 80% support should not be that hard to do. In the mood of the country at that time, refusing welfare reform was considered the one thing that Democrats could have done to repeat their losses of 1994.
Dr. Gingrich also claims credit for balancing the budget. He should receive credit for creating the GOP majority that made balancing the budget possible, but his handling of the whole process as speaker was not that strong. He lost the shutdown battles and had to give in to Clinton. Much of the spending cuts at that time came from cutting the military. He did some good things, but for him to claim that he engineered everything good that happened in the mid-90's is untrue.
On the other side, can you cite ONE conservative advance proposed and supported by Romney?
As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney looked at student performance as a function of class size and found that the popular idea of smaller classes producing better performance is false. The teachers' unions wanted to tie all education improvements to more government spending and spending on initiatives that would lead to more teaching jobs and union dues instead of better student performance. That kind of focus on finding the real issues and working on them to reduce spending or get better benefit per dollar spent is what I consider a conservative step forward.
Mitt Romney faced an 85% Democrat legislature in Massachusetts. He wasn't in a position to propose major conservative reforms, particularly on social issues. He made the best of the situation that he was given and made small but real progress in some areas. For instance, he changed the procedures for gun owners to receive their licenses in a way that benefited the gun owners. I would prefer that the Second Amendment be our only license, but that wasn't going to happen in Massachusetts. I admire someone who can stand against the odds and accomplish anything as much as I admire someone who coasts on the currents and makes pretty speeches. Many of our so-called conservatives today have spend much of their careers coasting on the currents.
As I said previously, he was “Palinized” before Palin made a splash on the national scene.
When I referred to Newt Gingrich being forced from leadership by his own bad character, I was not referring to the ethics charges. His own affair with Callista became public in the run-up to the 1998 election. That affair in light of the steps taken against Bill Clinton gave the Democrats another talking point and another chance to distract people from the issues. That distraction is part of why the GOP lost seats that year. His problems were not just with Democrats. Many Republican House members wanted him to step aside as Speaker because he made too many issues about him and created more distractions. Newt Gingrich has never shown that he has the right stuff to be in charge of anything.
You took one line from my post out of context and have created a straw man argument. I clearly said that Newt Gingrich deserved a great deal of credit, but he’s claiming more than he deserves.
Welfare reform had huge popular support. If I remember correctly, welfare reform had about 80% popular support. While this legislation was good, pushing through a bill with 80% support should not be that hard to do
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My point was not a straw man argument. My point was that Newt’s attraction is that he is capable of identifying those common sense issues with that range of support, “nationalizing” those issues, and getting them implemented.
Do you think developing our own national energy resources does not have a similar level of support?
Who’s pushing for implementing them? Newt & Sarah.
What about reigning in the liberal judiciary? Is that not at a 70-80% level of support?
Lots of common sense issues have that level of support, but relatively few are acted upon in D.C., and even fewer are implemented.
You need a DRIVER that will not let go of the issue in face of the dem/progressive/media onslaught to get even an 80% support issue implemented.
I don’t see Romney as that guy.
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As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney looked at student performance as a function of class size and found that the popular idea of smaller classes producing better performance is false. The teachers’ unions wanted to tie all education improvements to more government spending and spending on initiatives that would lead to more teaching jobs and union dues instead of better student performance. That kind of focus on finding the real issues and working on them to reduce spending or get better benefit per dollar spent is what I consider a conservative step forward.
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Thanks for making my point.
Do you think these sorts of small potatoes issue will put our nation back on the path of fiscal sanity?
Or put us back on the path to constitutionally limited government?
The biggest problem Mitt has in the nomination process is exactly his dearth of elucidating ANY big conservative idea he would push for if elected. He simply promises to manage the government more efficiently. We need the government pulled out by its roots in many areas, not managed.
It’s all about Romney’s resume. His resume is impressive, but most of us are not convinced he has core conservative prinicples for which he would fight.
Romneycare takes a huge personal liberty issue off the table in any debate he would have with Obama.
Romneycare is bankrupting Massachusetts as Obamacare will do to an ALREADY bankrupt USA.
Herbert Hoover was an accomplished private sector executive, and I don’t think you can say his administration turned out to have handled the great depression so well.
So, give us some ideas Romney will support, get behind, and not mush out when the media comes down on him for supporting those issues.
He certainly ridiculed Newt’s suggestion that the judiciary has to be brought back into constitutional compliance. If you don’t believe, with Newt, THAT is a problem worth addressing, you are no conservative, and are not paying attention. This is a price example of where Newt is out front leading on a 70-80% level of support issue, and is basically alone taking the slings & arrows of the liberal/progressive/media/GOP-E mushes for pushing it, and where’s Mitt? On the wrong side.
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When I referred to Newt Gingrich being forced from leadership by his own bad character, I was not referring to the ethics charges. His own affair with Callista became public in the run-up to the 1998 election. That affair in light of the steps taken against Bill Clinton gave the Democrats another talking point and another chance to distract people from the issues. That distraction is part of why the GOP lost seats that year. His problems were not just with Democrats. Many Republican House members wanted him to step aside as Speaker because he made too many issues about him and created more distractions. Newt Gingrich has never shown that he has the right stuff to be in charge of anything.
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I will concede there is some validity to your point.
However, again, if you look at what he did accomplish, Romney & Santorum are distant runners-up in accomplishments.
Plus Newt, I believe, has learned from those past mistakes.
I do not think you are giving enough credence to the media onslaught against him at the time, equating his marital infidelities to Bill Clinton’s perjury, and the scalp-hunting he was undergoing at at the hands from the liberal/progressive/medial cabal at the time (remember the Time magazine cover of the Grinch that Stole Christmas? 80 something ethics charges that were later dismissed? the “starving welfare children” because of the welfare reforms?).
At least Newt has proven he will fight the media mischaracterizations, and get the job done. I see no evidence Mitt will take the media on and stick to his guns.
I would like to believe Mitt or Rick would lead a conservative revolution.
I KNOW Newt will, because he has led one since he first came on the national scene. Newt has never stopped identifying those 80-90% issues that would bring the general voters over to our side, trying to get those ideas on center stage, using them to win “nationalized” elections, so that we can get them implemented.
I wish we had a candidate with a spotless conservative AND personal record. We do not.
I’ll take the pitt bull, if I can get him, please.