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I think it's also instructive to look at the issues which Newt Gingrich has put forward as those which Republicans should advocate: English, immigration, energy. Gingrich says that these issues have all been polled and they all show overwhelming support. Of all people alive today, Newt Gingrich certainly has the chops for this assertion. He has proven that he can put together a platform, a Contract with America, which can drive the money changers out of the temple. It is a pity that more conservatives turned a deaf ear to him because he had a zipper problem.

Sorry, Nathan, but Gingrich had more than a "zipper problem." He has a credibility problem. He will sound totally rational one day, and the next tell us "We are at the end of the Reagan era" or be appearing in "climate change" commercials with Nancy Pelosi, or, in his most recent endeavor, on a tour about education with ... Al Sharpton? To push Obama educational reforms? What is he thinking?

Limbaugh does this because he knows he has to popularize the matter and because he wants to demonstrate how constitutional principles affect people in their everyday lives. He wants to preach the gospel without citing the gospel. He knows that much of the Constitution today is simply unpalatable to an electorate conditioned to entitlements.

Here's Limbaugh's response to Gingrich's "Reagan era is over" comments:

"Figure out what the country needs" and then do it? We know what the country needs already! That's our ace-in-the-hole. One of the things Newt said in this interview was, "Far beyond just how do I subsidize your heating oil, how do I make it unnecessary for you to buy as much heating oil? And there are dramatic things we can do in that conversation." Now, "How do I...?" He means a president, running a campaign, not him. "How do I subsidize your heating oil?" We Republicans are going to talk about subsidizing people's heating oil now, and we're going to call that conservatism? If you want to talk about that, fine! If that's what you want the Republican Party to be, then be that and go ahead and say that's what you want, but don't call it conservatism. "There are dramatic things we can do in that conversation. I want to make it unnecessary for you to buy as much heating oil"? Now, conservation is great, folks. Conservation is great, but conservation does not equal growth. To sit out there and say people need to buy less and less heating oil, okay. Buy natural gas furnace, or any number of things, but if this country has always been about: "You need heating oil? It's going to be there. You need gasoline? It's going to be there."
The burden is not on you to conserve so that it's always there! It's economic. Capitalism is the greatest force for change in the world! Mark Steyn has a brilliant piece today on this very subject. It's how capitalism forces major innovation and change, not politicians, not Washington, not government. They don't force any kind of change other than in primaries with perception and attitudes and make people think that they're going to be better off, but it is capitalism that forces genuine change throughout culture and throughout society. Newt could have just as easily said here that conservative principles don't change, that the Reagan coalition is simply looking for leadership and that we need to bring more creative policy alternatives to the table than we have in the recent past. But that's not what he said. He said, "The era of Reagan is over. ... It's the end of the Reagan era." It is not. If the Reagan era is over, if the Reagan coalition is dead, what replaced it? Could somebody tell me? Precisely nothing has replaced it, and that's why so many people are scratching their heads, why so many people are a little nervous, because there isn't any real leadership out there that causes people and inspires people to get behind it and go rah-rah and make certain things happen.

Newt does not symbolize "real leadership."