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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjGhy8LVwAo

Newt Gingrich asked about Palin’s Experience. Checkmate.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/24/reagans-young-lieutenant/print

Reagan’s Young Lieutenant

By Jeffrey Lord on 1.24.12 @ 6:09AM

Lewis began meeting with key members already elected to the Platform Committee.

One of the first? That would be young Congressman Newt Gingrich, already serving as a member of the Platform Committee’s executive committee. The meeting took place in Gingrich’s basement book-lined House office, a cramped affair reflecting precisely how junior in rank Gingrich actually was in the House pecking order.

The meeting was pure Newt Gingrich. Precisely the kind of talk that so struck the Republican voters of South Carolina the other day and has captured Gingrich such a following in the GOP debates. It was filled with polite if barely disguised disdain for the American Left in general, and what he would later refer to as “the old, passive and reactive Republican party.”

Specifically in focus was Gingrich’s fear that the Republican RINO/Establishment members on the Platform Committee...would somehow try and moderate the Reagan Revolution with calls for tax increases or somehow lessening the Reagan demand for American military superiority over the Soviet Union.

Newt struck back. Hard. In private session — and public. Working with his fellow Young Turks Rep. Jack Kemp and Tom Loeffler from Texas, Newt Gingrich raised holy hell. What Dole was proposing was a violation of the Reagan 1980 platform, a gross violation of Reaganomics, and just plain dumb. With Democratic nominee Walter Mondale already out there pledging to raise taxes, this was effectively caving in to Mondale. Bob Dole, Newt snapped at one point, was nothing other than the “tax collector for the welfare state.”

The Gingrich work product? Making certain that Ronald Reagan was not put on record leaving the door open for any more ill-fated tax increases. Dole was furious with the young Newt — and, it might be noted, recently made a point of endorsing Mitt Romney. Hmmmmm.

http://www.newt.org/answers/#dede-scozzafava-endorsement

Newt has admitted it was a mistake to back Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in the 2009 NY-23 special election.

Whether it was helping to build the Republican Party of Georgia back when Democrats controlled the entire state or leading the nationwide effort in 1994 to break 40 years of Democratic rule in the House, Newt has always tried to advance the cause of a truly conservative Republican party. This has always meant supporting the most conservative nominee possible as selected by Republican primary voters.

Therefore, Newt will almost always back the nominee of the Republican party and not back an independent candidate in a race against a Democratic candidate.

Newt still believes in this principle, however, he has admitted it was a mistake to back Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in the 2009 NY-23 special election. Although she was the Republican nominee, the problem was that Republican primary voters did not pick her, the local party leaders did, otherwise her liberal views would have prevented her from becoming the nominee. The Conservative Party candidate whom Scozzafava was running against, Doug Hoffman, recently remarked about Newt’s endorsement of his rival, “I would advise other conservative republicans: Don’t hold this against him.”