Lecturing the Conservative collective about morals, faith, or even the good-government practice of living within your means whilst floating a $500K jewelry bill, or taking a Med Cruise while delaying your campaign doesn't speak fiscal conservatism to me at all. While he is often great as a thinker and policy wonk (on some things), he's not shown me anything beyond the original Contract with America and a checkered Speakership.
This is a little confusing. As conservatives, don't we state that people have the right to spend their money how they see fit? I don't get what these two examples you've mentioned repeatedly in the thread have to do with belief in fiscal conservatism when it comes to government.
You are making wrong assumptions and base them on the wrong "facts", and that's not a good conservative practice.
1. See my post #69 about morals and faith, and you just might change your tone, if not your mind.
2. You are assuming that the Gingrich family ran a $500K bill buying jewelry, when, in fact, they only had a credit line open at Tiffany's which has been untapped and since closed - that's an inexpensive way to have a line of credit for emergencies or unexpected purchases. Many people avail themselves of such credit lines, they are not unusual.
3. You are assuming / implying that Newt and Callista are not living within their means, yet you have no idea what their means are; chances are that $500K line of credit means something different to them than it does to you. Has anybody even implied that they have no means to pay the $500K bill, if they decided to spend their own money in any way on themselves?
There is also another reason why they felt they might need a backup source of credit funding in 2005, and it has nothing to do with buying jewelry.
See "Cain/Gingrich 2012"? - FR post #64, 2011 October 06
Of course, they may not be able to afford millions of dollars to loan to Newt's campaign (something that John Kerry had no problem borrowing from his billionaire chocolate heiress wife, or that John McCain had no problem borrowing from his multimillionaire beer distributor heiress wife) but whatever gave you an idea that they are behind on any of their payments or spend more than they can afford to pay, aka living beyond their means?
or taking a Med Cruise while delaying your campaign ...
If you are his strategist, you may have an issue with that decision and quit, as many did by moving to "greener" pastures of well-funded expected Perry campaign or to other "sexier" campaigns... But at the time there were many people deciding to jump into the field or jumping out of the field of candidates, and it was probably a perfect time to take a break and relax before what was going to be months of grueling campaign schedule - while the media was concerned and busy with other "are you in or out" would-be candidates. He is doing better now than most of better-funded campaigns where the outside contractors he has hired, landed.
That the people, who he hired and left to tend to his campaign and fundraise in his absence, decided to quit instead and go for the money for themselves, speaks a lot more about them than about Newt's decision to treat his wife to a short vacation before a long hard campaign.