In a talk radio interview in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich gave an acknowledgement that he isn’t the perfect candidate — but he’s better than Mitt Romney, he says.
Host Kelly Golden asked Gingrich about the endorsement he received from the New Hampshire Union Leader, in which even that state’s largest newspaper said that Gingrich is not perfect.
“Well, I think that’s right,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I think — look, anybody who’s honest about it knows that no person except Christ has ever been perfect. So I don’t claim to be the perfect candidate. I just claim to be a lot more conservative than Mitt Romney, and a lot more electable than anybody else.
And I think if you look at my track record of reforming welfare, cutting taxes, balancing the federal budget for four straight years, leading House Republicans to their first majority in 40 years, and their first re-election as a majority since 1928, I think that stacks up pretty well.”
Gingrich has previously invoked the grace and forgiveness of God when dealing with a key imperfection of his: His past infidelity and divorces.
Newt also directly took on Mitt Romney, while discussing what was bringing so many people to pay attention to his campaign. “We think there has to be a solid conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, and I think I am the one candidate who can bring together national security conservatives, and economic conservatives, and social conservatives, in order to make sure we have a conservative nominee.”
Golden then described the rub against Romney as being that he was “way too eager,” and then asked Gingrich if there is anything he would not do to be President.
“Sure, there are lots of things that I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t lie to the American people. I wouldn’t switch my positions for political reasons. It’s perfectly reasonable to change your position if facts change, if you see new things you didn’t see in the past. Everybody’s done that — Ronald Reagan did it.
“It’s wrong to go around and adopt radically different positions based on your need of any one election. Because then people have to ask themselves, ‘What will you tell me next time?’
“And I never take polls to figure out where I stand, because I think my job as somebody who’s been at this a long time, and as a historian by training, is to methodically figure out what’s right for America — and how do I explain it to you, so that you understand how we could create jobs, how we could balance the budget, how we could have a better future, how we could save Social Security? These things are all doable, but they require an adult, serious conversation.”
(Via the New York Times)
