Newt Gingrich and The Contract With America The Devil (politically speaking of course)

Newt Gingrich has officially joined the 2012 presidential race. What's not clear is how Gingrich expects to actually foster Republican or Conservative votes.

On 05/15/11 Gingrich was on "Meet The Press" and said the following:

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.

Medicare itself is social engineering. Technically anything you do to change it, or even take it away could be seen as social engineering. Gingrich is trying to walk down the middle like Obama.

I don't think the American people have "improving Medicare" on their minds. I think most Americans are starting to realize that no matter what you do to bloated government systems, they are always going to become ever expansive and expensive.

When asked about the individual mandate question by Gregory, Gingrich went on to say.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond...

He doesn't want the individual mandate, he doesn't want to get rid of the individual mandate, he wants some variation of it. On this issue Gingrich is again trying to walk down the middle like Obama.

I think that Gingrich is trying to be all things to all people. The only problem is that he is going to be watched closely by Conservatives, not the Independents he is attempting to attract. In other words; Gingrich is going to loose his base while chasing those who pay little to no attention to politics anyway. How else could one be "Independent" or "Undecided" with the way things are going today.

Towards the end of the interview Gingrich criticizes himself.

REP. GINGRICH: One of my great weaknesses is that part of me is a teacher analyst. And part of me is a political leader. And I've--one of the most painful lessons I've had to learn, and I haven't fully learned it obviously, is that if you seek to be the president of the United States, you are never an analyst, you know, you're never a college teacher because those folks can say what they want to say. And somebody who offers to lead America has to be much more disciplined and, and much more thoughtful than an analyst. Analysts can say anything they want to because there's no downside. But the person to whom you're entrusting the leadership of the United States had better think long and hard before they say things. I think that's a fair criticism of me.

Either Gingrich learns when and where to say what, or this is going to be one of the shortest bids for the Republican nomination in recent history.

There are, of course, a few sides to this. Either Gingrich actually has wild ideas he needs to keep to himself, or he is just wacky. Perhaps he just wants to be president, and will say anything to get there. Only time will tell. But I will be watching...

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