Romney’s positions and that of Newt’s are pretty well known.
One has acted them out and the other has not.
One is opportunist for the purpose of advancement, the other is a serious intellect and strategist whose performance in the past I very much agreed with.
In fact, I had to educate our new local host his 2nd day on the air. He made the unfortunate mistake of Praising Bill Clinton for Welfare Reform, the Balanced Budget and lowered taxes through capital gains tax cut.
Brian Sussman made an unfortunate mistake of trying to give Clinton credit on the one hand while demonstrating his errors on the other.
I called in and thanked him for deciding to become a full time talk jock but I wanted to correct his view about Clintons legacy. Not to be contrarian or take away from him or Bill Clinton but they were just plain wrong and I asked I might quickly demonstrate why Clinton deserved zero Credit and when I am through who really should get the credit, without insulting anyone.
So I quickly went through them:
Contract with America, who wrote it? Newt Gingrich was his reply.
That is correct.
Now to clear the record I’ll go through them in the order I think is most powerful:
Capital Gains tax cut-
Was thought of as a response to Clintons raising of taxes and as a tool to keep the investment community well, inevesting and spurring additional investment. That was a Contract with America initiative and a well thought out position by Newt.
There was some horse trading and Newt gave away something no one really cared about to get it and the economy kept going with the result being unemployment dropping from 7% to 4% in a few short years.
The host immediately got the idea, said he would probably rephrase his thought at the end and asked me to continue.
Balanced Budget -
Again, Newt gave Clinton some bases that were already on the secondary list, devised by Dick Cheney, as alternatives for closure. Clinton got a win for his anti-military wing, we gave away something we didn’t care about and got what we wanted.
Welfare Reform -
this was the end goal all along and with a new Republican majority Congress it easily passed the House only to have Clinton veto it.
No problem. The President has the bully pulpit but was embroiled in a few distractions at the time which made it possible for Newt, Dole and few others to take their case directly to the American people who were sick of welfare queens.
Clinton was made aware the American people and the Houses were very much in the majority and very excited about reforming welfare. Still, he vetoed it again and then tried to make the argument he was going to co-opt the argument and reshape welfare reform as he saw fit.
It became very apparent the American taxpayer had, had enough and so had the houses. The pressure became to much and Clinton relented with nary a change to the original welfare reform act.
While he took credit for welfare reform it was never his idea, never became a priority until politically forced.
This was a Newt idea and part of the Contract with America which he shepherded.
Mitt has done nothing like this and I can trust Newt to follow through on his positions.
Welfare Reform, the Balanced Budget and lowered taxes through capital gains tax cut.
Who has a record of performance on imperatives important to all Americans?
Who can perform like that? Especially when they will have a super majority in Congress and a majority in the Senate?
Got Newt?
Want Newt!
Back when Rush was getting his start, this was a common theme of fashionable libtards. Rush called it a gorbasm. Anybody remember the term?
There are still a lot of libtards around who claim Reagan was just lucky and Gorbachev was really the man responsible for ending the Cold War and reforming the Soviet Union.