I was a Gingrich supporter until the Des Moines debate on Saturday. Gingrich came across as a mean-spirited, condescending sourpuss with an instinct to go for the low blow. When Romney argued that he has spent most of his life in the private sector and knows how jobs and wealth are created Gingrich churlishly retorted that the reason he was in the private sector was because he had lost an election to Ted Kennedy. Otherwise, he’d be a career politician and not in the private sector. The irony here is that Gingrich would still be in politics too if he hadn’t been forced to resign over charges of ethical violations. Even his own party wanted him out. At least Romney’s exit from politics came as a result of a loss to Ted Kennedy, not because of questions about his ethics.
In the same debate Gingrich called Michelle Bachmann a liar when she charged that he had supported the individual mandate in the early 1990s and more recently. He also floundered trying to explain his absolutely ridiculous proposal to establish “citizen review panels” to decide which illegal aliens get to stay and which have to go.
Twelve million illegals are going to come forward, identify themselves as illegal, pay a fine, and provide documentation showing they’ve been living here for twenty-five years and have joined a church? And who, pray tell, is going to staff Gingrich’s review panels? I can imagine the monstrous bureaucracy that will have to be created to manage this nutty program.
This guy is an ass. He’s no conservative. He has no sense of humor or humility. His ego is so inflated it makes Obama’s look modest in comparison. He is an unpleasant, self-important political hack who can’t be trusted. He’s Barney Frank without the lisp. His day has come and gone. We nominate him at our peril.