Absolutely, it took a long time for conservatives to realize they were being screwed by the GOP-E. Coulter and Drudge were shilling for Romney back in 2008, and all of the elite got together to try and destroy Gingrich early on with the first opening they could find. That out-of-context sound bite taken from the NBC interview was their attempt to cut him off at the knees right out of the gate. Gingrich is a massive threat to the establishment and they have been out to get him from day one. Absolutely none of the attacks on him starting with the Ryan plan ring true. It’s all spin, hype, lies, half-truths, etc. Newt is the only guy who has the will and the ability to turn this country again and send power back from the government to the people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/newt-gingrich-glory-days.html?pagewanted=all
...just about everyone had written him off as irrelevant by Labor Day. Gingrich sounds rueful when he thinks back to the pounding he took during his first week as a candidate, when he got into trouble with conservatives for criticizing the entitlement-reform plan offered by his friend Paul Ryan. “It was the excuse to go after me,” he told me. “So everybody said, ‘Oh, good, he’s bleeding, let’s see if we can’t kill him.’ And that’s what was the real revelation to me, is that people I really thought were personal friends all cheerfully engaged in the lynching. And a lot of them of course now have a vested interest in my not winning, because of how silly they’ll all look.”
http://www.newt.org/answers#Ryan
Paul Ryan (and the House GOP’s) Medicare Plan
Like Ryan and the House GOP, Newt supports a premium support model for Medicare. However, he wants seniors to have the choice to opt into the new system or to stay in traditional Medicare.
Newt agrees wholeheartedly with Rep. Ryan that we must give our seniors more choices than the current one-size-fits-all Medicare model. Both concur that creating the opportunity for seniors to buy private insurance is the key to both improving care and lowering costs.
The one key difference is that under Newt’s plan, as outlined in his 21st Century Contract with America, seniors will also have the choice to stay in the current Medicare system or choose a private insurance plan with support from the government to pay the premiums. The other difference is that Newt believes that seniors should have this option starting next year, not in ten years.
Q: So why did Newt use the term “right wing social engineering” on Meet the Press when discussing these proposed changes to Medicare?
Gingrich is opposed to any political party imposing dramatic change against the consent of the governed. Afterwards, Newt quickly admitted that his choice of words was too extreme, and he apologized to Congressman Ryan shortly thereafter.
In response to the host’s hypothetical question of whether Republicans should change Medicare even if there is public opposition, Gingrich’s response was no you should not. One of Newt’s basic governing philosophies is that government should offer a better alternative to existing entitlement programs that seniors can freely choose. Gingrich is opposed to any political party imposing dramatic change against the consent of the governed. Afterwards, Newt quickly admitted that his choice of words was too extreme, and he apologized to Congressman Ryan shortly thereafter. Newt regards Paul Ryan as one of the biggest innovators in Washington, D.C. and he deeply admires the seriousness and boldness of his historic Path to Prosperity budget.
And with that understood, how will Obama treat Newt’s position say, versus Mitt’s “severe conservatism” that “doesn’t care about the poor” but if needed he’ll “repair the safety net?”
Mitt will be roasted on a spit.