Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is giving broad hints of his intention to seek the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012, and part of his strategy is to declare, at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, that President Obama is a “radical”, in fact the most radical leader of the nation in its history!
Newt does not seem to realize how ridiculous he looks by making such a silly assertion! Because the President managed to get through, after a long battle, a moderate health care plan that does not fully please liberals and was seen as a compromise, that makes him a “radical”? The fact that he wants to promote financial reform of a banking and stock market system that ran amuck for years makes him a “radical”? His attempt to promote a program that allows some oil drilling, but seeks to diversify our energy future by moving away from too much dependence on oil, makes him “radical”? The fact that he worked to preserve our banking, insurance and auto industries and prevent a worse loss of jobs makes him “radical”? His determination to make progress toward a nuclear free world by making agreements to cut the number of nuclear weapons and scale down the danger of nuclear war makes him “radical”?
Any sane person would see that Barack Obama has been working night and day to insure the return of prosperity and to secure our safety and security, both of which are the main responsibilities of any American President!
If Barack Obama is indeed ” radical”, then so are Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and even Ronald Reagan!
In reality, Newt Gingrich KNOWS that Barack Obama is within the mainstream, and has even been willing to work with the President on education reform. It is very clear that Gingrich respects the President, despite his rhetoric!
Newt Gingrich is simply displaying his ambition for the White House, and is therefore willing to lie to himself, fellow Republicans, and the American people! He is a very intelligent, articulate man, who has shown great speaking and writing ability, as he is the author of many books, including Civil War novels which utilize his historical training, all the way to the Ph. D.
At the same time, Newt Gingrich has been very willing to divide and create confrontation, as demonstrated by his years in the House, working against Speaker of the House Jim Wright, and being an extremely controversial Speaker from 1995-1999! It could be argued that he was more of a lighting rod than Nancy Pelosi has ever been in the past three plus yearrs as Speaker!
If Newt expects to seek the Presidency, he will have major liabilities which include: his scandalous private behavior, including cheating on two wives, and telling his first wife of an impending divorce while she lay ill in the hospital; his often corrupt behavior as Speaker, bordering on illegality; his willingness to use character assassination to the extreme against the opposition party; and his lack of any public office for what would be fourteen years by the time of the Presidential Election of 2012.
An election between Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich would be, certainly, one of the most exciting, dynamic and clear choices that the American people would ever witness. But the thought of a President Gingrich brings up thoughts of a time of conflict and divisiveness that would be greater than anything we have yet seen! A Newt Gingrich Presidency would be a truly “radical” Presidency, far greater than anything that Barack Obama could even imagine!