Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press
He said he wasn’t in favor of radical liberal or conservative social engineering and Republicans flipped out, what’s the problem?
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Link to the aforementioned flipping out?
Sorry about that, skip to about 1:55: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-18-2011/fast-dive
Fox News, man… I just… it’s amazing. It’s truly amazing.
Nate Silver, from FiveThirtyEight.com, mentions why it was a problem in a recent article.
The bigger problem for the Republicans, though, is a snowball effect: each Republican lawmaker who comes out against the bill makes it a bit less popular — and that in turn increases the incentive for other Republicans to break ranks too. Some Republican House members might be willing to stomach voting for a bill that has the support of 45 percent of the voters in their districts, but if popular support is just 40 percent, or 35 percent, they may throw in the towel. So a feedback loop develops, and one defection begets another.
That’s why many Republicans were apoplectic when, for reasons that are still hard to understand, Newt Gingrich denounced the bill on “Meet the Press,” referring to it as “right-wing social engineering.” Though Mr. Gingrich has since tried to walk back the remark, you can be certain that the sound bite will be revisited ad nauseam by Democratic congressional candidates on the eve of next year’s elections.
This bill being ridiculously unpopular and so politically toxic that even Republicans are running away from it would be great news for Democrats.
If Democrats weren’t totally likely and all but insured to continue acting like they always do and messing this up like they manage to mess up everything else by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.