Posted on 03/10/2012 7:48:30 PM PST by Steelfish
Santorum Blasts Gingrich Over 'Romneycare'
Chris Welch Springfield, Missouri (CNN) – It's a common aspect of Republican Rick Santorum's stump: attacking Mitt Romney for creating - and then "recommending" - "Romneycare" to President Barack Obama.
But Saturday, fresh off his projected win in the Kansas caucuses, Santorum added that GOP presidential rival Newt Gingrich is "honestly not a whole lot better."
"For 20 years when I was pushing medical savings accounts, he was pushing a federal mandate for health insurance," Santorum said. "And when 'Romneycare' passed, he sent out a glowing statement talking about how this wonderful bill had just passed in Massachusetts."
Santorum argues that Obama, Gingrich and Romney all line up on the same side when it comes to their support for an individual mandate.
The campaign points to a 2006 newsletter Gingrich wrote for his consulting firm, the Center for Health Transformation, in which he praised Romney's Massachusetts health care reform.
"The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," Gingrich wrote, according to the report.
Also in the newsletter, Gingrich expressed his support for the individual mandate in Massachusetts, but only for those making at least $54,000 a year. And while he commended Romney's effort in building the plan, he acknowledged the bill will likely face "tremendous scrutiny" from those who doubt the law will work.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
I wonder how long it would take President Santorum to regulate the internet, so we wouldn’t be having conversations like this?
I'm still waiting for Newt to say global warming is a hoax, and he was a stooge for the Pelosi photo-op. Talk about looking stupid!
May be you need to read CAREFULLY!
I was saying that it is Gingrich himself who is providing ammunition to the Romney camp and referenced the article by way of example. /sheesh:
Go figure why Levin and Rush blasted the hell out of Gingrich for these comments on “right wing social engineering”
Let me repost this. Maybe you didn’t see it earlier.
It’s pretty clear to everyone now that your hand wringing about vote splitting and defeating Romney was just crocodile tears. You’re all for Newt stepping aside where Rick has the best chance to deal Romney a blow, but are quite content to have Rick actively campaign and split the vote where Newt has the best chance to deal Romney a blow. You’ve exposed yourself. Good luck getting any Newt supporters on board. Right to the convention Newt!
Ooooh Sununu a huge RINO if there ever was one.
Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) blasted Gingrich
And Jim Talent another silly RINO supporting Myth Romney.
Hey, you got anymore Mittens supporters 'blasting' Newt? I'm sure you find some more cut and paste RINOS. LoL.
That was taken out of context and it has been shown time and again that Newt supported Ryan’s approach. But this still keeps being repeated.
Are you waiting for him to call you personally? He’s addressed the issue countless times.
One time in this interview with Dana Loesch:
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2011/12/01/good-interview-with-dana-loesch-and-newt-gingrich/
And on his web site:
http://www.newt.org/answers#GlobalWarming
Global Warming/Cap and Trade
Newt does not believe there is a settled scientific conclusion about whether industrial development has dramatically contributed to a warming of the atmosphere.
Newt absolutely opposes “cap and trade” as well as any system of taxing carbon emissions. He testified before Congress against it in 2009 and led a grassroots effort while the Chairman of American Solutions to block its passage in the House and Senate.
Newt believes that cap and trade would kill hundreds of thousands of American jobs, cause electricity and fuel prices to skyrocket, and make America poorer. In contrast, Gingrich believes the best way to protect the environment is through markets, incentives, and entrepreneurs, who quite often are deploying innovative new technologies.
As for the question of whether industrial development has dramatically contributed to a warming of the atmosphere, Newt has noted there is no settled scientific conclusion. Many scientists believe it is the case. Others do not. But this unsettled scientific question has nothing to do with the best approach to protecting our environment, which is always markets, incentives, and entrepreneurs creating better and more efficient products and services.
Q: So why did Newt do the ad with Nancy Pelosi in 2007 calling for action to address climate change?
Newt does not believe there is a settled scientific conclusion about whether industrial development has dramatically contributed to a warming of the atmosphere.
Through his entire career, Newt has supported pro-market, pro-entrepreneur, innovative solutions to our environmental challenges, which he believes are superior to the liberal pro-bureaucracy, pro-tax, pro-regulation approach to the environment.
Newt believes that conservatives cannot be absent from the conversation about the environment and instead that conservatives must offer and explain why conservative solutions are better. Unfortunately, the attempt to get that message out through the ad with Nancy Pelosi failed. On November 8, 2011, Newt told FOX News’ Bret Baier that doing that commercial with Pelosi was “probably the dumbest single thing I’ve ever done”.
Newt will continue to oppose the Democrats’ destructive cap-and-trade and carbon tax proposals, continue to support expanded domestic oil and gas drilling, and continue to fight for a fundamental replacement of the job-killing Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency.
Ricky would then say he did it for the DC Beltway Team. A good team player that Ricky!
As a Santorum fan I found his, "take one for the team" comment a little awkward...almost as absurd as Newt explaining his adultery as a byproduct of his love of country.
Rick has been non stop attacking Newt. But don’t you see, that’s by design to get Mitt in the WH. One big coupe and voters are clueless to it. Hardly, one would want to know they’ve been duped, so they stay clueless.
It’s never what it appears to be - they only make you think it is. They’ve been at it for a long time.
What is a bigger issue to you? The ever expanding Federal Leviathan, or Newt’s personal life?
That’s the most convoluted logic to-date. If Gingrich had traded places with Romney, I and I’m sure several others would have demanded Santorum to get out. We are not wedded to a candidate. We don’t drink the Kool-Aid here. We are part of Le Resistance to deprive Romney of the nomination. That is the end game. At this point in time we (and others) are convinced that Newt is on an ego trip and is enabling Romney to clinch the nomination. The best evidence of this came from Carl Cameron who on Super Tuesday night reported on FoxNews after Romney’s one point win over Santorum, that the Romney camp is “happy” to have Gingrich still in a 3-man race. Go figure.
Here’s the transcript of the interview. It’s pretty much known at this point that Newt’s RINO enemies started this primary looking for something to knock Newt out of the race and latched onto this out-of-context quote as their opening salvo to try to cut his legs off. This isn’t an issue in the general election, so why bring it up as a basis on who we should nominate? Mitt won’t be attacking Newt in the general election and Obama can’t attack Newt “from the right” on health care, it just doesn’t make one bit of logical sense.
MR. GREGORY: What about entitlements? The Medicare trust fund, in stories that have come out over the weekend, is now going to be depleted by 2024 , five years earlier than predicted. Do you think that Republicans ought to buck the public opposition and really move forward to completely change Medicare , turn it into a voucher program where you give seniors...
REP. GINGRICH: Right.
MR. GREGORY: ...some premium support and — so that they can go out and buy private insurance ?
REP. GINGRICH: I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left- wing social engineering . I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors. But there are specific things you can do . At the Center for Health Transformation , which I helped found, we published a book called “ Stop Paying the Crooks .” We thought that was a clear enough, simple enough idea, even for Washington . We — between Medicare and Medicaid , we pay between $70 billion and $120 billion a year to crooks. And IBM has agreed to help solve it, American Express has agreed to help solve it, Visa ‘s agreed to help solve it. You can’t get anybody in this town to look at it. That’s, that’s almost $1 trillion over a decade. So there are things you can do to improve Medicare .
MR. GREGORY: But not what Paul Ryan is suggesting, which is completely changing Medicare .
REP. GINGRICH: I, I think that, I think, I think that that is too big a jump. I think what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options, not one where you suddenly impose upon the — I don’t want to — I’m against Obamacare , which is imposing radical change , and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change .
john sununu is a rabid antisemite who regularly renounces Israel. Does that mean we should stop supporting Israel too?
Let’s assume you are correct. But you see MestaMachine, in a national campaign those nuances are lost and Obama will make sure to use one-liner statements to demolish his opposition.
Do you honestly believe that Newt's patriotism led to his adultery? It's not a matter of his personal life, his *explanation* was, IMHO, an expression of contempt for the voters he was trying to assuage with it.
It was kind of like Clinton's "I smoked but I didn't inhale." I honestly could have cared less whether or not Clinton smoked pot in the '60s, but when he expected voters to believe he "didn't inhale," he was insulting people's intelligence...kind of like Newt saying his affairs grew out of his love for the country.
It’s not convoluted at all. If the goal is to defeat Romney why is Rick attacking Newt leading up to Alabama and Mississippi where Newt cabn do real damage to Romney. Rick is in third in both states. Why won’t he step aside like Newt has done in state after state? Maybe the goal is not to defeat Romney at all.....hmmmmmm.
I took that to mean Newt focused too much on his work and not enough on his marriage. It makes sense. If you’re neglecting your marriage and staying long hours at work all the time, you might be tempted to have a workplace affair. Personally I think Newt is stuck in a hard place. His second wife seems like a harpy from Hades but there’s no way politically he can come out and criticize her for anything. Just the fact that she came out in the press in the ‘90s saying she’d destroy his career if he tried to be president, while they were married, shows you just how unsupportive and disrespectful she was. Like Dennis Prager says, there is nothing worse one spouse can do to the other to destroy a marriage than to publically humiliate them. He says that’s worse than adultery.
Nice rationalization rofl.
And so he ends the interview:
“I would be against a conservative imposing radical change.”
That’s what he called Ryan’s Plan and got blasted by Rush and Levin.
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