Gingrich lays out his view that this was "a performance election, not an ideological election". In short, the erstwhile Republican majority and the Bush administration dropped too many balls on too many fronts not to pay a high political price for 6-8 years of cumulative failures.
He suggests that while Barack Obama may establish a partisan majority for a while, there will be no left-centric ideological majority, especially now that Obama is establishing a centrist administration that is anything but representative of the more extreme left.
Gingrich cites how Obama ran and won an election on the promise of broad-based tax cuts - something Gingrich notes was once-dubbed 'right wing'.
Gingrich's general point highlights how the Obama tax-cut campaign fodder stands in stark contrast to the tax-cuts-are-the-big-bad-boogie-man screaches from the hardcore nanny government crowd, ever-so-loudly obfuscating their flat rejection of the heresy of making broad-based cuts in government spending.
Nevertheless, the point stands : Obama won running on "I will cut the taxes of millions of Americans". Not exactly liberal doctrine.
Gingrich also pretty much endorses Obama's neocon-ish/hawkish national security team. I would dare say Obama hardly ran on that.
My own sense is we will see Obama flip-flop on both the tax-cuts and his relatively-dovish campaign facade.
We will not see any real tax cuts for working people (much less rational spending cuts in government) and the neocon foreign policy will persist.
The worst of both worlds. But I am sure Newt will be just as happy with neocon Obama, even if he isn't tax cutting neocon Obama.
[Note : the right-left paradigm is how Newt cast his analysis. I am personally trying as much as possible to avoid using this cheap short-hand in present-day contexts, though sometimes it is hard to avoid because so many on both ends of this imaginary "spectrum" themselves embrace it.]
He suggests that while Barack Obama may establish a partisan majority for a while, there will be no left-centric ideological majority, especially now that Obama is establishing a centrist administration that is anything but representative of the more extreme left.
Gingrich cites how Obama ran and won an election on the promise of broad-based tax cuts - something Gingrich notes was once-dubbed 'right wing'.
Gingrich's general point highlights how the Obama tax-cut campaign fodder stands in stark contrast to the tax-cuts-are-the-big-bad-boogie-man screaches from the hardcore nanny government crowd, ever-so-loudly obfuscating their flat rejection of the heresy of making broad-based cuts in government spending.
Nevertheless, the point stands : Obama won running on "I will cut the taxes of millions of Americans". Not exactly liberal doctrine.
Gingrich also pretty much endorses Obama's neocon-ish/hawkish national security team. I would dare say Obama hardly ran on that.
My own sense is we will see Obama flip-flop on both the tax-cuts and his relatively-dovish campaign facade.
We will not see any real tax cuts for working people (much less rational spending cuts in government) and the neocon foreign policy will persist.
The worst of both worlds. But I am sure Newt will be just as happy with neocon Obama, even if he isn't tax cutting neocon Obama.
[Note : the right-left paradigm is how Newt cast his analysis. I am personally trying as much as possible to avoid using this cheap short-hand in present-day contexts, though sometimes it is hard to avoid because so many on both ends of this imaginary "spectrum" themselves embrace it.]
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